Magazine Conventions & Design Tips

Cover Pages

Magazine cover page serves several purposes. It sells the brand, it has to be visually appealing and different from the other cover pages on the newsstand to attract the new readers. On the other hand each new cover must be different from the previous issue but still familiar and recognizable to regular readers. It has to present the publications character and its content. All of this make the cover page the most important page in any magazine.

Process of magazine cover design is a tough one. Designers spend lots of time and effort to create a cover page. Some magazines, even have one person dedicated only to cover design. Yes, cover designer is a designer that designs only cover pages. Of course only the biggest magazines in the world have cover designers, but you get the point. The process of cover design can last up to 5 days in weekly magazines, to few weeks in monthly magazines.

Several ideas should be tried and several different proposals of one idea tested. Of course, majority of magazines cannot spend that much time and effort on cover design, not because they don’t want to, they simply lack the manpower and time, but still, creation of each cover page takes time and it should be taken seriously

The first design is rarely the best one. Try few options and when you are done, let it rest for a day. Something that looked good today may not seem good tomorrow. Cover page has to have lasting power, at least for the time while it is in the circulation.

It is important to highlight that the free magazines or the ones that are supplements to newspapers do not rely on newsstand sales and thus they have bigger freedom in their design approach.

The cover forces readers to take action and make decisions. The cover is your periodically test to see how well you know your audience. If you don’t have a good idea who your target audience is, what makes them tick,  that lack of idea will be visible on your cover.

Image based magazine covers

This is the most common approach to magazine cover design and it usually consists of one or few persons on the cover, looking at the camera, preferably smiling. You can see this approach in almost all celebrity magazines, almost all fashion magazines and men’s magazines. In many cases the person featured on the cover sells that issue. This is why some celebrity sells more covers than the other.

Magazine cover lines

Usually the most important part of any cover is interaction between the words and picture. If done right, it will send the message and it will instantly be spotted in the sea of covers on a newsstand. Some magazines go for few cover lines, some fill almost each empty space with cover lines. Again, it all depends on the character of the publication.

Writing cover lines is a role of copy editor or editor in chief. You may think this is an easy task, but to create appealing and attractive cover lines, it takes time and lots of effort.

A cover needs one line set in big type and it has to be the best cover line. It can be call for action, solution to problems, powerful statement or some word play, but be careful with word play. The reader has to understand what it means immediately. Some languages are good for word play like English, others are not. If your language is not suitable, don’t do it.

Some marketing research states that the average person spends 3-4 seconds on average glancing at the cover pages displayed on newsstands. This is why everything should be clear instantly, from the design related concept of the cover to the words in cover lines.

Design related tips

•           Cover model should look straight into the camera. Eye contact is important.

•           When designing a cover you can play around, you can exaggerate, but you should remain within your concept and style and you should know what to exaggerate.

•           Each cover needs one headline that will pop out. In size, in color, in attitude.

•           The cover page should have a focus point. It can be a model in the image it can be a headline or a number, but something has to draw the eye.

•           Divide your cover in three sections. Big one with main cover line, smaller one with few cover lines and the smallest one with few more cover lines.

•           If you plan to use orange color for the cover lines print them with additional spot color. Orange never looks good if printed in traditional CMYK process. It will look brownish.

•           Green is the least used color on cover pages and red is the most used one. Whichever you use, make sure you have a contrast between colors.

•           They say black covers do not sell. They are wrong.

•           For smaller cover lines, preferably go with black text or white if the background is dark. For bigger ones use colors.

•           Masthead’s position is not a sacred one. If you think you can achieve something, for example boost sales with a cover line above the masthead than go for it. Move the masthead little bit below and add some cover line above it even if you have never done it. This can be great if your magazine is tucked away on the shelves. This extra space can be useful.

•           In USA magazines are racked in waterfall presentation so the top third of the magazine is the most visible part and there you will see the biggest cover lines. In Europe it is the different story. Over here magazines are stacked so that the left third of the magazine is the most visible one. This is why there are so many magazines in Europe with masthead in top left position.

•           Photography looks better and sells more than illustrations on the cover page.

•           It does not matter if you shoot the cover model in your studio or if you buy stock photo of a model background has to be in solid color. Any patterns or mixing colors in the background will make your life hell when designing a cover page.

Masthead/Logo Tips

Magazines and newspapers are basically consumer goods, and, like any consumer goods they are brands and, like any other brand they got to have a logo. A magazine masthead. Masthead’s role is to be recognizable. In the sea of magazines on the newsstands you want your logo to pop up.

To be instantly recognizable. This is not an easy thing to do. That’s why logo is the most important element on the cover page.

When designing a logo several things should be your concern. The logo should capture the publications character, attitude, it should fit the intended readership, it should be versatile too, so that it can be used in other occasions, like marketing materials.

When working on a logo you should try tenths or even a hundred variations. When you find several that you like, you should work on its variations. First, and obvious thing is to choose the proper typography. Is your publication modern one, is it more traditional, is it urban or more conservative?

Is the name of the publication long one or a short one? If it’s a short one maybe you can make the logo stand in the top left corner. If it’s longer one and if it has two words maybe they can be positioned one on top of each other and placed in the top left corner.

If you ask yourself, why top left corner, it is because when magazines are stacked on the shelves on the newsstand top left position is always visible, no matter how densely stacked the magazines are on the shelves. If the name of the magazine is longer maybe you can make it in bolder type for more impact.

It is always better to use different fonts for the logo than the ones you use for the cover headlines. Although the logo is not read it should be recognizable, and that’s why it should be different in type from the rest of the cover.

As you can see, the options are endless.

When you finally decide on several versions try it out on the page to see how it interacts with the images and general design of the cover. Sometimes you will see that a top left position does not work well, maybe the top centered position would be better.