Wednesday, September 28 Complete and hand in Typographic Portraits Power Point about Magazine Cover design Continue working on creating magazine cover image

Create a Magazine Cover Think of some different popular magazines How can you create an interesting magazine cover using your own imagery? Think about –layout –masthead –typography –UPC code –date and price Print out 3 copies of your image (portrait) and create 3 different possible layouts by hand Final layout must be approved by me! DIMENSIONS: LETTER SIZE PORTRAIT

How do I create a successful magazine cover?

Get Inspiration! Go to a store and look at a few magazines that catch your eye. Try to decide WHY they caught your eye. What is it?... the photos? the layout? the subject of the magazine? Use elements you like in other magazines to inspire your magazine's layout.

Use a Great Masthead The masthead is your magazine's logo. It is most often located at the top of the cover and should be the first thing your reader sees. It must be legible and tell people about your magazine. If the masthead is developed with illegible fonts, people won't view it as you intended. Does the top 2" of your magazine lock in the reader's attention? Remember, your cover design will be fighting the other covers for attention. A well-designed masthead visually entices the buyer to choose one magazine over others in its category.

Use a Great Cover Photo A well-designed cover can get your magazine noticed and even more importantly, picked up! Choose a photo that is interesting to your potential readers or which tells a story. Choose a photo that is recognizable to your target readers or shows action, unusual colors, taken from unusual angles, or combinations of all these. Remember, your magazine only gets one chance to make its first impression. Photos are powerful in making a good first impression.

Careful Font Usage The choice of fonts can have a major impact on the overall professionalism a magazine conveys. –Using too many font faces is visually confusing to the reader. He/she may have trouble distinguishing the stories from the ads. Consider using only one to two font families in your articles; one for the headlines and subheads, one for the body text. Research shows that serif fonts, especially small ones, are easier to read than san-serif fonts –(serifs are the little tick marks at the end of lines in the letters). –The eye tracks across the serifs of the letters making reading easier. ALL CAPS are difficult to read. –If you want to emphasize a word consider using bold versions of that font as an alternative. –Stretching/compressing fonts look awkward. Consider the extended or condensed version of that font or even another font family.

Website featuring a magazine cover redesign: gUGo&feature=relatedhttp:// gUGo&feature=related