History of Magazine Design Approaches:
i) Early Magazine Covers
The earliest covers for magazines were quite unlike what an average person today would think of as a cover for anything. They had more in common with what you would find on the first few pages of a book, containing a table of contents, a title, and a date. Later, the list of contents were removed from the front and the title tended to be bigger, but it still looked somewhat like a title page in a book. Gradually magazines began to show more illustrations on their covers, but it tended to be generic and symbolic, rather than showing the content of the magazine specifically.
ii) Poster Covers
ii) Poster Covers
Poster covers, are what they sound like, covers of magazines that resemble posters because they are composed of one large picture that takes up most of the page and very little text, besides a title. They are eye catching because the single picture stands out in a way that many lines of text would not. They are not as widely used now, but publications that are certain f their readership feel more free to use them because they poster cover only implies that there is more inside, and does not specifically say so.
iii) Pictures with Type
iii) Pictures with Type
Pictures with text are one of the most common formats for magazine covers. While some magazines could use only pictures to attract readers, others used the tactic of adding cover lines which described the major contents of the magazine. The short descriptions would intrigue readers, without having to rely on a single picture that may not catch someone looking for a specific topic. Often they are carefully placed around or over the elements of a picture to be harmonious and emphasize the elements having part of the picture overlap the large title is common.
iv) Covers at the Turn of the 21st Century
iv) Covers at the Turn of the 21st Century
In the present fewer magazines are using the pictures-only poster cover, and are increasingly using cover lines, even to the point of overlapping and covering people in the pictures. This began at the turn of the century, when picture were so commonly used that they were no longer intriguing enough on their own. More and more cover lines were added as a result. Now it is considered normal for the cover of a magazine to be nearly covered by short lies describing it's contents. In a way it is almost as though we have come back to the original practice of putting the table of contents on the cover, though in a more visually pleasing way.
Observing Magazines
I looked at the magazine rack near the book section of the local Target store, which I had not known even existed before. After a quick glace the first ones that stood out were Self, GQ, Instyle, Redbook, Sports Illustrated, MarieClaire, Seventeen
The mastheads, or titles of the magazines varied on how visible they were they ranged from over half covered up to the degree that some would be unintelligible to not covered at all. Some examples: on the covers of People, MarieClaire, Seventeen, and InStyle the mastheads were covered halfway or more, others like GQ had only a little covered. While others had none at all covered over. It seemed that the more well known magazines were willing to cover up their mastheads.
Some strategies that seemed to work for catching the eye on the covers were using bright colors, particularly red on a contrasting background, and people, or faces. Also, clean formats with fewer words worked as well. There were a few magazines that did not have the usual glossy covers and these stood out much less, and looked cheap.
To try to make the most eye-catching cover possible I used a white background and red details and text. I also included a person as one of the main objects to further increase the probability of it being looked at.
