DESIGNING A MAGAZINE COVER Intro to Comms

Introduction  When you walk past a magazine rack, what makes you pick up a magazine to read it?

Objectives  By doing this lesson, students will:  Describe 3 design elements that should be considered when designing for a specific audience  Design a proper logo for a magazine cover  Choose an appropriate color scheme for a stated audience  Design a magazine cover for a specific audience

3 Design Elements  Font  Color  Layout

Fonts  Don’t overuse fonts  Never more than 3-4 fonts  Readable  Size, size, Size  Bold instead of italics

Common Fonts Times New Roman – best for large blocks of text Arial – Good for titles: very clean Comic Sans MS – whimsical and informal Script – Small and Elegant Georgia – classy Trebuchet – Very clean

New York  What does this font say?  How about Bernie Madoff, Monster?  Why do these two fonts work well together?  CONTRAST!  What audience is this trying to attract?

Tattoo  What does this font say?  How about the other fonts?

Colors  Use a color scheme  Stereotypical colors work  Gender (Pink, blue, gray, pastels)  Industry Standards (Cat Yellow, John Deere Green)  Age Groups  Country Colors

Industry Standard  Why would Oprah’s magazine use John Deere’s colors?

Gender-Based  Is the color scheme easily recognizable?

Layout  Decide what you want to stand out  Pictures  Titles of articles  Key Words

Pictures  Why are there so few words on the cover?  What do you think the majority of this magazine contains?

Titles of Articles  Notice the title of the article is centered – WHY???

Key Words  What words stand out?  Who would this attract?

Mimicry  Check out other magazines – what do you like about them?  Mimic features of other magazines that you like – discard the ones you don’t.