Front Cover Magazine Evaluation

Rebecca Paterson

Title of the front cover of the magazine, I chose to use “Empire” because its published monthly, is a well known publication for mainstream films, and has regular features that I could use to make my magazine conform to functions and conventions like news, previews, mainstream films, top 10 or 100 lists.

The image is of the main character of the film, looking directly out at the audience and is the main focus of the front cover.

Some issues have a “sticker” or “banner” type of feature on the front cover which is the next big feature in the magazine. Also in some issues they have smaller pictures on the front cover, however they shouldn’t intrude on the main focus of the main feature.

The small text allows the reader to see what the main, big articles are in this months issue. Dividing the text up and giving it a heading in a different colour makes the text easier to read. On the headings I used a drop shadow just emphasise the headings and to allow the reader to differentiate between the headings and the text below. It also makes it easier to read.

On some of the empire issues they have a sell line, that gives the audience an indication of what the theme of the issue is.

Barcode, date, issue and price are located at the bottom out of the way so that they do not intrude and pull attention away from the rest of the magazine front cover.

The title of the film which is the main feature is the largest text on the front cover, this is so that the reader knows that this piece of text links to the image. The word “the” is smaller and in italics to break the text up and exaggerate the size of the “GIRL NEXT DOOR”. I thought it was most effective to fit around the text instead in one line.

COLOUR SCHEME – I chose to use the classic, red, white and black as it was authentic and symbolises horror. as in my research and analysis of the front cover magazines I found that they also used a fourth colour like yellow, green or blue, to emphasis a few words to make them stand out and break the colour scheme so that it was easier to read.