Convetions of a Magazine Front Cover Explained

On magazine front covers, there are many things that we would expect to see (these are conventions). There is:

• Masthead- This is the title of the magazine. This is usually in the top left of the page or goes straight across the page. The reason it would be in the top left is due to how they are stacked in the store, this is the only part of the magazine that the audience would see when looking at them
• Date Line- This is usually at the top above the masthead or at the bottom next to the barcode. This tells you what issue number the magazine is and the date that it came out (week/month)
• Cover Lines- These are stories that feature in the magazine to sell the magazine to the audience. The main cover line tells you what will be featured in the main story of the magazine. This could include what the interviewer will talk about with the star of the magazine of pull quotes from the article
• The 'left third'- This is everything that is on the left third of the page. Magazines will usually place sell lines and coverlines on here to entice the audience to read the magazine. They place them here as this is how they will be stacked in the store.
• Main Image - This is the image that is the main focus of the magazine. This will usually be a close up or medium close up with the subjects of the picture making direct eye contact with the camera. This is so they can engage with the target audience when they see it on the shelve. The main image is also placed very centrally on the page so the audience knows that this is what is meant to be the main focus of the front cover. Under this main image there will usually be cover lines or pull quotes from the article/interview that they are featured in to attract the audience and give them a general idea of what it will be about

Conventions of a Magazine Front Cover

The Brief

Preliminary exercise: Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close -up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mpock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

Main Task: The front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text must be original, produced by you- minimum of four images.