Magazine Cover Conventions Reflection

 Magazine Cover Convention Blog Reflection-

Learning Magazine Cover Convention-

This project made me realize how important magazine conventions are in creating a visually appealing cover. Before doing this project, I viewed magazine covers as a picture and a few titles addressing what the magazine will be about. But after analyzing a magazine cover my teacher gave me I realized how theirs many conventions that make up a magazine cover and each one serves a purpose. Conventions like the masthead, coverlines, barcode, puff/plug, strip, dateline, and cover image help communicate the magazines purpose.

We also did a assignment in Adobe InDesign where we had to create our own magazine cover. Doing this assignment helped me remember the different conventions and understand the purpose even more since I was physically doing the magazine cover. Even though using Adobe InDesign had me confused at first and I didn't know where to start but the videos and power point my teacher provided helped me understand and guided me. This assignment helped me understand magazine cover conventions on a deeper level but it also helped me learn how color schemes, fonts, and layout choices all work together to make a magazines theme or genre.

Genre Choice

I chose to do a travel and lifestyle magazine cover. My magazine cover specifically focused on night time exploration of Paris. My magazines masthead is Paris After Dark, it is meant to emphasize the beauty of Paris after sunset. My cover image is a picture of the Eiffel Tower at night illuminated a golden light. The dark night sky contrasted with the golden light glow sets a dreamlike, graceful, stylish, nighttime mood. This is exactly the type of travel experience I wanted to promote. The coverlines I decided to use match my theme very well. Overall, the masthead, coverline, and the cover image clearly tells the audience the magazines purpose which is a guide to nighttime tourism in Paris.

On my magazine cover, I used many magazine conventions to make the design look excellent and clearly communicate its purpose. I made sure to make my masthead bold to establish the magazines instantly recognizable. I also added three coverlines that highlight what the magazine will be about, so it will give the reader a preview of what the magazine will be about. The dateline/price was included to let the audience know when the magazine will be published and how much it would cost. I used a barcode to show authenticity and match how a real magazine cover would look like. I added the price into a puff/plug to enhance it and make sure the audience knew exactly how much they would be paying. Lastly, I added a strip at the bottom to emphasize the main purpose of the magazine and guide the readers focus. All these conventions helped create a organized layout and made the magazine cover appealing and effective for its intended audience.

Challenges/ Successes 

One challenge I faced was using the right colors/ fonts since I didn't want the color or font to take away from the cover image. I had to experiment with many different color pallets and fonts. At the end, I decided to use navy blue for the strip and puff/plug, greenish yellow color for the text, and light blue for the date line. For the font I used 3 different fonts which I feel looks professional all together.

A success was the overall result. Even though I had difficulties deciding on coverlines, masthead, cover image, color, font, where everything should be placed it all came together at the end. Once everything was added and I experimented with many options I found the perfect elements and at the end it all came together.

Takeaways

This assignment taught me how to use Adobe InDesign and all the different tools it has to offer. It showed me how the font and colors play a big part on a magazine cover's clarity. How the coverlines, puff/plug, masthead, and strip alignment plays a huge role on the magazines appeal. Most importantly, how magazine conventions guide the purpose and design of every element.

How this may help with the portfolio project 

This assignment will be very helpful when it comes time to do my portfolio.Since it has taught me how to make a visually appealing magazine cover, helped me understand fonts, colors, and overall all the different tools Adobe InDesign has to offer. I have learned how important it is to balance creativity and structure and now I can use all these tools and produce magazine covers even better.