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:DIMENSIONS:

LETTER SIZE

PORTRAIT

How do I create a successful magazine cover?

Get Inspiration!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:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk8hOc5gUGo&feature=related