Marketing: Magazine Cover

Magazine publishers, editors, and circulation directors know the importance of the cover image as both a newsstand impulse buy and as a brand. 80 percent of consumer magazines’ newsstand sales are determined by what is shown on the cover, a fact that can mean the difference between a magazine’s success or failure over time. The cover image and design reinforce the brand, an important identification factor because the average reader spends only three to five seconds scanning a magazine cover before deciding whether to buy that issue. Magazine covers not only offer information about what’s inside a particular issue, they also provide significant cultural cues about social, political, economic, and medical trends. As both historical artifacts and marketing tools, magazine covers deserve closer study.

Analysis Video HERE

In your notes, write down what the speaker says about:

The Masthead

The Cover Image

Cover lines & stories

Bar code & Price

Color Choice

A good cover needs to accomplish four things:

1. Identify the personality of the magazine.

2. Attract the target audience

3. Lure the reader into the magazine

4. Establish a visual identity (consistent use of format)

Assignment:

You need to design a magazine cover using Adobe PhotoShop that highlights one of the Hybrids you created in the last project. Your magazine cover can be based off of an existing magazine, for example use the layout and name of a science magazine, but design your own photos, titles and story lines, or create your own magazine totally from scratch, around an interest you have.

Ideas: Science Magazine, Sci-Fi, TIME, Mysteries, World Developments, etc.

Step 1: Fill out the Hybrid Magazine Cover worksheet (in the basket) and glue into your sketchbook.

Step 2: Bring your sketchbook & worksheet to teacher for sign-off.

Step 3: After you have your sheet signed off, open PhotoShop.

Step 4: Create a new document,

dimensions: 8in wide, 10in tall; transparent; titled: LASTNAME_COVER

Step 5: Using your worksheet plan as a reference, create your cover.

Step 6: When you are finished, save your document as a JPEG

Step 7: Create a new page on your website called: Magazine Cover

Step 8:Upload your magazine to this page

Edit>Insert>Choose File> Upload

Step 9: Upload your cover JPEG to Google Classroom

Step 10: Fill out a rubric and turn in to the teacher, DUE MONDAY, 2/13/17

The four cover elements:

Photo/Art/Illustration, Blurbs/teasers (cover lines), Nameplate and Folio (includes price if for sale)

You must have:

1. A background
2. A cover photo (may have smaller photos to show other features included in the magazine, but it MUST include your hybrid)
3. A Title
4. Several story line titles
5. Issue date
6. Issue price & bar code

VOCABULARY: masthead (title)

typesetting/typography

Coverlines

layout/composition

nameplate/logo

bleed (illustration goes edge to edge)

Your magazine cover will be graded on if you included the above elements and how you carry out Unity in your magazine cover.

THINK ABOUT:

Do all the parts work together?

Think about readability, can you read the type against the background?

Is the type style readable?

Are the sentences too long?

Are the titles descriptive enough to make you know what the article is about?

Does the type size signify the importance?

Does the photo or photos support the theme?

Does the photo catch your eye?

Is the main image too busy or too simple?

How is your effort and craftsmanship? You will need to be selecting, cutting, pasting and cropping.

Does your cover look professionally neat?

Layout: how did you arrange all the elements?

Is the type all lined up flush left, right, centered?

Is the type over the picture or a background?

Did you add a banner with the issue date, web site, and cost?

Does the layout make it easy to read or confusing?

RUBRIC:

EXAMPLES IN REAL LIFE: