Textual Analysis of Magazine Covers

Rationale
To gain an understanding of how to achieve an authentic and professional looking magazine cover for our film , we had to look into existing magazines. We chose to analyse the most successful film magazine - 'Empire.' We looked at everything to do with the cover:

• Masthead
• P.O.A
• Font
• Titling
• Image
• Other features

We tried to analyse the horror publications they produced as they'll give us the best insight into making our horror publication as professional as possible. To show and map our findings we will use a mood-board format. This will allow us to quickly gather information and present it all in one place. 

Mood board study

Findings

We found many very helpful techniques that will allow our product to look 'shelf-worthy.'
Masthead - The masthead was always filled with the name of the magazine - in this case 'EMPIRE.' The name always began in the P.O.A (Primary optical area) and ended in the top right 'dead zone.' The titling was large and used the same font throughout all the publications - this technique allows the audience to create a connection with the product.

Main Image - The main image is almost always focused to the centre of the cover. Sometimes it's positioned slightly to the left or slightly to the right of centre. The image is large and covers around 2/3 of the page. The colouring of the image almost certainly determines what house style/colouring will be used. In the case of the 'Hellboy' cover; colours are generally white or red - some other colours are sparsely used.

Uses
Our findings are very helpful. We believe the consistency of colouring and fonts are very effective in creating an aesthetically pleasing product - so we'll try and use this technique. The large imagery and titling is also a technique we like and will try and re-create.

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