Why are fonts and colours important?

The font and colour used on magazines are important because they portray a certain message to the audience about the genre and also indicate the target audience’s age and gender. For example, using a rounded font with smooth edges would portray the magazine as a pop magazine because it’s less harsh and looks more fun. Big, bold sharp font would convey the genre of the magazine to be rock because it looks more serious and more intimidating. Using pastel colours of pink and blue would suggest the genre pop because it’s more colourful and playful, whereas using black and red colours would symbolizes the genre rock because it’s a lot darker and moodier. Also, using colours like blue and red could portray the magazine to be targeted towards the male gender because it’s the stereotypical colours that represent men. Pink and purple would be used on the front of the magazine to draw in a female audience as these are the stereotypical girls colours too. Also, using darker colours expresses the older generation because they’re perceived as more serious, formal colours and will attract older people because it shows the magazine to be proper and official.

Fonts

old NEWSerifsSerifs are known to be used on older styled fonts to make them look more historical and ancient.

This font does not use serifs and the edges are clean and sharp. This makes the font more sleek looking and therefore modern also.

This font uses thick and thin widths which looks less modern and more stylish. The font looks less bold because it doesn't have letters that are just thick.

The new font doesn’t use a variety and just uses thick letters and looks bolder, clearer and bigger.

Charlemagne Std Franklin Gothic Book

The new font, Franklin Gothic Book, is more appropriate for my magazine masthead, main coverline and titles. This is because it has a bigger presence as it’s bolder and thicker and draws attention more quickly.

Script FontABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (Edwardian Script)ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (French script MT)These fonts are examples of fonts that I shouldn’t use for my magazine because you can hardly see what it actually and is very swirly and confusing. For my magazine, the font needs to be bold, big and block like. This font doesn’t look like these traits and would be used for things like wedding invitations, diplomas and certificates.

Fonts I should be usingABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXWZ (Arial Black)ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ(Impact)These fonts are examples of what I should use for my magazines masthead, main coverline and titles. These are good fonts because they’re both very big and bold. You would definitely see the main information on a magazine with this font because they use block letters so you can’t miss them.

Editors Letter• For the editors letter on the contents page, the font

should be a handwriting style because this makes the letter more personal. The font style gives it a human touch to the magazine and can be something the audience can relate to.

Bradley Hand ITCChaparral pro lightHarlow solid italicInformal romanLucida calligraphyMonotype Corsiva

Script MT BoldViner hand ITCSegoe printRage italicMagnetoSegoe script

Font sizeFont size is very important because it indicates the importance of the text. The masthead, main coverline and titles are in bigger font because they are the most important bits on a magazine; they tell the audience what the magazine is about and also an implication to the gender, age and genre of the magazine because of the font style and colour.

From this cover, we can see that the masthead uses a capital letter and the coverline and titles also are significantly bigger than the smaller less important magazine. By following this code and convention, I am making my magazine more successful and effective.

Colour

Some colours work well together and match well however some colours don’t look good together. Using primary and complementary colours together will make both the colours a lot brighter and therefore the writing will be a lot harder to read. Because of this, selecting the right colours is extremely important because not only does it determine whether the audience will actually want to look at the magazine, but also implies the genre, gender and age of the audience. Using lighter colours will indicate the audience being of a younger age or the genre of music to be a lot lighter like pop. Using dark colours signifies the audience to be more serious and therefore older, or a darker genre like rock.

Green- natural, growth

Blue- calm, relaxing Yellow- happiness, positivityPink- feminine,

romantic

Red- danger, angerOrange- tropical, enthusiasm Purple- royalty, power

Navy blue- importance, authority

Representation of colours

Wrong use of colours

CRASH

This is the wrong use of colours because it does not portray the music genre of rock with is suggested through the masthead ‘crash’. Light blue and bright pink are colours used when conveying a children magazine or pop magazine, which contrasts a lot with the atmosphere rock creates. The masthead ‘crash’ is obviously for a rock magazine which uses darker colours.

BUBBLE

This is the wrong use of colours too because ‘bubble’ implies the magazine genre to be pop, and here the red and black colours clearly suggests a rock music. Because the colours imply a different effect to what pop music actually conveys, the masthead becomes very unclear, confusing and extremely uneffective.

This is an example of a masthead that works because it uses the colour red and white to signify to the audience that the magazine is for the genre rock because red can represent danger and anger, which rock music has the same connotations. The font is also very big and bold to stand out and make it noticeable. The thickness of the font also shows the significance of the masthead and emphasises the genre because it looks out there and outrageous.

What colours I’m thinking of using• Because my magazine a rock magazine, I am planning on using dark

colours. However, I am aiming towards are younger generation that are based around my age and also for all genders, therefore I want to use gender neutral colour too.

For the dark colour O suggested, I decided to just go with black so that it doesn't clash with any of the other colours I plan on using and is the harshest colour that will represent the genre rock. I am also thinking of using the colour yellow because it’s extremely bright which will grab the readers attention and also it doesn’t really target towards a specific gender which is ideal in my case because I am not just targeting towards one gender. I plan on using white as a light colour that can separate the yellow and black which are very dominating and could make the magazine look too much and very overpowering just them two together.

What font I’m thinking of using• I am thinking of using the font called “Impact”.Which looks like this.

• I am using this font for my masthead because it is very bold and think which amplifies the importance. The edges and cut off and sharp rather than curly because it represents rock more with is a hard-hitting genre. This font also looks more serious and sets a moody atmosphere which rock magazines tend to imply also. The font doesn’t display a certain gender is presents more which is convenient because I want to appeal to all genders.