My Magazine Front Cover

Front Cover

Constructing the front cover of my magazine was a familiar task, as my AS studies required the production of a music magazine which was also produced on the Apple Macs, consequently based on my previous knowledge  of conventions of a magazine, the manufacturing was much more proficient, as the ancillary task, was a mere development of my previous studies.

It was important that my masthead was bold and eye catching as during my investigations and observations of Empire magazines, their headings were usually clear, therefore I embarked upon this technique by using a large font size coloured in red, I decided to use the colour red to green or blue because it is bright primary colour. Conversely, the colour red can also be associated with blood which is a typical paradigm of a slasher sub genre. However, as our trailer is based on the sub genre of the supernatural, the colour red depicts danger which is a parable for the events which occur in the actual trailer, to make the masthead even more outstanding I implemented a white border around the heading to increase its visibility and additionally create a house style.

Mastheads are usually supplemented with subheadings, which in my magazine is placed on the top of the masthead stating `meet the new action A-list!’ this is a paradigm of a magazine and has a function of revealing some of the main content of a magazine. Another feature of a magazine is the barcode which gives the magazine a degree of power and authority. A barcode is frequently complemented with a price tag which is located in the heading costing £3.90; this principle was based on my findings in my research, revealing that Empire magazines allocated its price tag in the letter `M’ as a house style, which is also supplemented with the website address under the masthead as a marketing tool.

An image in a magazine cover is to substantial degree important, as a method of the audience being able to form a relationship between the audience and magazine front cover; hence magazines conventionally use renowned superstars to appear on their front cover to attract their target audience. For instance, a harry potter film would use Daniel Radcliffe as he is the main character in the film but to further grant the audience the ability to identify with the movie. As a result, I felt it was imperative to implement the main character in my trailer which is `Sam’ to form a relationship between the main product and my magazine. The character on my magazine has a large composition on the overall magazine, as she is framed in a medium shot allowing her to express emotions and relate directly to the audience, this can be seen in the magazine as the character looks sad and vulnerable because our trailer is based on fear and danger which is associated with the devil. The Sam is also holding a candle under her face representing the Ouija Board scene in our trailer, the light shining on her face could represent hope. In relation to the layout of my magazine, the main text is situated away from Sam’s eyes because her plank stare is supposed to be creepy and give the audience the feeling of being watched.

Sam’s costume in the trailer was also used in the magazine to form a correlation between my main product and my ancillary task. For instance, if Sam’s costume in the trailer is dark and rugged, it wouldn’t be logic to put images of her dressed formally because it would form a negative correlation but also puzzle the audience, as a result using the same costume in the trailer for my magazine brought about elements of continuity. Sam’s shirt is a convention as stereotypically teenagers seem to be fashionable suggesting that Sam cares about her outer appearance which supports Robin Lakoffs theory of gender representation. However, Sam’s hair is messy which could contradict this theory but her hair style was intentionally implemented to convey the period of disequilibrium by Todorov in which she would have been running about, making her hair messy. 

Magazines follow specific colour schemes which conventionally carry implicit meanings for instance, durind my research I noticed that a vast majority of magazines have around 3-4 different colours on their magazine front covers which varies depending on their target audience. Likewise, I used red, white, yellow grey and black in my magazine as a fundamental technique to make the magazine outstanding, which would draw the attention of the reader.

Images and Mastheads are significant to a magazine but that does not undermine the role in which written text has on the overall look and interpretation of a magazine. The most important piece of text in my magazine is the heading of my trailer `the summoning’ which is coloured in grey to give a misty feel but to also to create a distinction between the main of Sam and the heading. Besides, the heading acts like a splash line promoting my trailer and hence adding my main product. I have also used a variety of pre-modification such as `massive and biggest’, these superlatives makes the magazine seem the best and therefore draws the attention and creates an indirect relationship. Most magazines front covers use Standard English and avoid using slang or potential taboo words although this may vary depending on the audience. In my magazine I wanted to challenge this convention as my audience is teens, the use of dysphemism such as `bloody hell’ highlighted in white and yellow, would not attract a negative response as teenagers stereotypically use non-standard forms of English. Additionally, I used a range of exclamative sentences such as `45 new movies you need to know about right now!’ as a method of interacting with the vibrant personality of my audience, hence the colour yellow suggests happiness representing their personality.

Moreover, a significant amount of magazines use taglines to give the reader an insight into the content of the magazine, which as a result indirectly persuades them to read on, as my magazine represents a real life product, I have embarked upon the use of taglines such as `Scream8: Wes Craven spills on sequel!’ as a magazine consumer myself, and having digested a substantial amount of Empire magazines I knew that taglines are important to suffice a media product.