Magazine Cover Research

Magazine covers are mainly portraits of people
who are of importance to the subject of the magazine.

Four basic elements are needed:

• Publication theme, 
• Image format 
• Image to text colour contrast 
• Space placement

Magazine covers are quite often used to reflect different subjects such as fashion and music. Having a popular musician on a cover makes them more desirable, they are all represented in different ways. Most music covers are portraits of famous musicians that are represented within the magazine.

              Some other covers are more group shots where the lead singer is centre of attention, and the have other pictures taking the attention away from the main point.

Some fashion magazines like 'VOGUE' place the text of the title in different ways, sometimes in front go the picture and sometimes behind. This magazine focuses on fashion and celebrity gossip. These covers are more glamorous than music magazines.

The celebrities modeling on the cover are modeled in different ways and in different environments to create different themes.

Film magazines covers vary a lot in style for the different genres of films. Some covers recreate a scene from the movie for the cover and some are just photographs of the actors / actresses. The covers that recreate a scene are more interesting most of the time and more eye catching and give a relative idea of what he movie is going to be about.