Magazine front covers/conventions - Section 3

Purpose of a front cover

• The front cover functions to entice readers to buy a magazine. Although the reader will spend a fraction of the time they read the magazine focusing on the front, they may not pick it up in the first place unless the front cover is well designed.
• The front cover is made up of a number of important features. These are common conventions of magazines.

Masthead - This is the name of the magazine and is almost always displayed at the top. The font style and colour will have been chose extremely carefully to help sell the magazine, as well as give some indication about the content and audience. Similarly, the name of the magazine will be carefully chosen.

Tagline - This goes near the masthead, and is sometimes attached to it. It shows what the magazine is about or who it might be aimed at.

Central image - This is one of the most important parts of the front cover as it catches the readers eye before they even look at the printed text. The central image will be relevant to the magazines purpose and audience, and will often be strongly related to the feature article. Much can be said about a central image, and so much can be denoted and connoted from an image.

The cover model - For many magazines, a cover model will be used. This may be a celebrity, or well known individual connected with the magazines genre (e.g. a rock star posing for a music magazine): or it may be a photographic model. Consider the implications of this. Think about the mise-en-scene.

Anchorage - This is a term that refers to how images are referred to. In magazines, images will be anchored by captions (directly explaining what the pictures depict), by coverless, or by articles and headlines. Anchoring an image helps give it meaning, as it helps the reader understand the significance. 

Secondary images- They may be used on the front cover to help promote other features in the magazine, usually anchored by a coverlid. They are often used in magazines where readers need to be enticed by the picture rather than the cover line text (e.g. celebrity magazines)

Cover lines - These are located at various points on the front cover, telling readers about the magazines contents - and specifically, the articles they'll find. The front cover often features 6-12 cover lines in an attempt to lure different readers to different things. Cover lines will often use language and presentational devices to be most effective.

Mode od address - Mode of address refers to the way that magazines communicate with their readers. Some magazines will use a direct mode of address, communicating with individual readers. This might be through use of the cover model (e.g pointing directly at the camera).

Puff - As in 'Puff of air', this is a device which helps to draw attention to and promote certain elements in the magazine. They are often set against colourful backgrounds and are shaped - e.g. rounded. Quite often they advertise a "freebie" or a special feature in the magazine.

Pug - Pugs are the 'ears of a magazine and are placed at the top left or right-hand corners of a front cover. They usually display a promotion.

Barcode, price, edition - They key features are always on somewhere on the front of a magazine cover.

Use of colour -  This is used to great effect. Some magazines will alter all the colour schemes from edition to edition (masthead, cover line fonts, etc), while others will alter some colours to co-oridinate with the central image.

Font - Front covers will display a variety of font choices, usually adapted to infer meaning