Notes on Magazine Design

• All magazines have a target audience in mind, a niche market to aim at 
• Magazines are clearly differentiated due to the target audience 
• They follow the code and convention, so that we can easily interpret the content and have the expectation of what the magazine should be like and what people hope to buy
• Price, barcode, date, issue number are all presented on the cover 
• Magazines have a main image placed in the centre of the cover, it dominates the page and has a direct relation to a feature article 
• Recognisable masthead (title), it is an iconic aspect
• Plugs and Puffs are used to entice the audience to buy the magazine
• Use of numbers to grab customers attention
• Main cover line is the biggest font size on the cover, it corroborates an article inside
• A quote is pulled out from an article and displayed along with the main cover line
• Cover lines are used around the cover to draw people in to reading it
• A colour scheme is effectively used 
• There is a thematic link between the colours and month/season it is published, i.e summer will use pastel or bright colours
• Magazine covers are sectioned into three parts, left third, centre and right
• Left third contains most text, it is the section people are likely to see first due to the way its presented on shelfs in shops
• Loads of different genres in magazines i.e fashion, film, music, lifestyle, fitness, motoring
• Audiences could include the age, gender, class, sexuality of the consumer
• The representation of the audiences uses ideology (powerful idea) e.g womens magazines would be a representation of what woman should be like (femininity) and mens would be how men should be perceived (masculinity)