Magazine publishers, editors, and circulation directors know the importance of the cover image as both a newsstand impulse buy and as a brand. 80 percent of consumer magazines’ newsstand sales are determined by what is shown on the cover, a fact that can mean the difference between a magazine’s success or failure over time.  The cover image and design reinforce the brand, an important identification factor because the average reader spends only three to five seconds scanning a magazine cover before deciding whether to buy that issue. Magazine covers not only offer information about what’s inside a particular issue, they also provide significant cultural cues about social, political, economic, and medical trends.  As both historical artifacts and marketing tools, magazine covers deserve closer study.

 
​Your Assignment: 
​You have a job; you need to design a magazine cover using Adobe Photoshop.  You can either:
• Base your magazine cover off of an existing magazine for example use the layout and name of teen or sport magazine, but use your own photos, titles and story lines (you will still have to go through your fonts to find ones similar to the original magazine).
• OR •
Create your own magazine totally from scratch, around an interest you have. For example, create a magazine based on Rats, Shopping, a Boy/Girls Life in High School, or Fossils, etc. using your own Photo’s, titles and story lines.

​DO NOT LOOK UP MAGAZINE COVERS ON GOOGLE. Please look at the covers I have posted about as reference.

A good cover needs to accomplish four things:
1. Identify the personality of the magazine.
2. Attract the target audience
3. Lure the reader into the magazine
4. Establish a visual identity (consistent use of format)

You must have:
• A background (Original images, colors, textures, etc)
• A cover photo (should dominate picture plane- may have smaller photos to show other features included in the magazine)
• Magazine Name/Title (should be prominently placed on the page)
• Several story line titles
• Issue date
• Issue price
• Your magazine cover will be graded on if you included the above elements and how you carry out Unity in your magazine cover.

• _____Unity can be achieved by carrying out a common theme in the type styles, photos, story titles and descriptions. Do all the parts work together?
• _____Think about readability, can you read the type against the background? Is the type style readable? Are the sentences too long? Are the titles descriptive enough to make you know what the article is about? Does the type size signify the importance? Do the colors work? • _____Does the photo or photos support the theme? Does the photo catch your eye? Is it too busy or too simple?
• _____How is your effort and craftsmanship? You will need to be selecting, cutting, pasting and cropping. Does your cover look professionally neat and have clean edges?
• _____Layout, how did you arrange all the elements? Is the type all lined up flush left, right, centered? Is the type over the picture or a background? Did you add a banner with the issue date, web site, and cost? Does the layout make it easy to read or confusing?
• The four cover elements: Photo/Art/Illustration(s), Blurbs/teasers (cover lines), Nameplate and consumer information (includes price if for sale, date, etc)

• Save work in your student folder, save as:  yournamemagcover.psd (you can also save as a .jpg, but you will not be able to work on your project in Photoshop if you do). When complete, upload to your website on a "Magazine" page.