Evaluation Question 1Film Magazine Cover

By Connor Strudwick

Our film magazine cover (for Total Film)

For our magazine front cover, we chose to use the Total Film brand as it is based in

the UK and it’s availability to a large target audience on multiple platforms.

Layout ConventionsThe masthead is large and normally positioned at the top of the page and partially behind the main image on the cover. We followed this convention whilst making sure that the masthead is easy to recognise (Total Film’s logo).

One of the main cover lines are above the masthead to promote exclusive content. We followed this convention and developed it by offering the reader a free copy of our movie poster. We did this to try and convince the reader to see our film. The reader could also put the poster up for other people to see and convince them to watch our film in the cinemas.

Layout Conventions

We used flashwords such as ‘world exclusive’ all around the cover to attract the reader’s attention. We made the flash words on the cover lines a different colour to make them stand out more. This techniques is commonly seen in Total Film front covers.

Layout Conventions

Just like existing front covers, we positioned our cover lines on either side of the main image, so that they won’t ruin the cover’s aesthetic appearance.

Layout Conventions

We positioned the barcode at the bottom corner of the front cover as it is away from the reader’s initial attention at the main image. We found that the barcode is normally hidden in similar places on existing media texts for the same intentions.

Layout Conventions

When looking at existing texts, we found out that the front cover would also have images of up-coming films in a row. The orientation is different due to the different layouts, but the most common positions are below the main image or to one side of the main image. We followed this convention by promoting existing new films that are going to be released in next year, with their respective images being along the right side of the main image.

Layout Conventions

Lastly, we made sure that we added all the small detail such as the ‘stamp’ graphic, the website, hidden dateline and appropriate theme. One convention we forgot to follow was the price of the magazine, which is normally positioned with the dateline.

Layout Conventions

We didn’t include the price of the magazine, This was the only convention that we didn’t include. However, this isn’t a massive problem as magazines would have plastic packaging with a price sticker on it.