How to design an impressive magazine cover

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HOW TO DESIGN

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Designing a magazine cover calls for sheer blend of creativity and technical skills. The cover of a magazine is the attire which creates an impression in the minds of the audience. You need to craft the cover in such a way that they captivate the prospects. In other words, the cover should have the appeal to steal the attention of your audience. At the same time, a magazine cover has to convey its intended theme unfailingly. When you incorporate all necessary design elements in the right proportion, you can smartly compel your target audience to buy the product.

The element of unusualness attracts the reader’s attention, so try to be as creative as possible when you design a magazine cover page.

Here are a few guidelines for you that will enable you to infuse the necessary charm in any magazine cover.

Maintain consistency People identify your magazine by its cover. When they scroll through the rack in the stores, the cover of your magazine grabs their attention. Therefore, you should be consistent with the design on the cover in order to create your identity. You must maintain a consistency between the cover designs of successive issues. Make your theme familiar to your readers. You may try out some new magazine cover design ideas when the concept grows considerably old. The readers should find a coherency between the illustrations, graphic designs, fonts and other design elements on the cover.

Typography on the magazine cover

T Y P O G R A P H Y

Typography is an important design element. No matter how effectively you implement other magazine design tips and tricks, if typography fails, nothing works in your favour. The shape, structure and size of the fonts should be optimized to add to the visual appeal of the page. You may stick to a particular type for a few editions and then move to another. Typographical dynamism ensures that the design never turns out to be boring. Vary the font sizes to focus on more important issues, like the name of a person or an article covered in a particular issue.

Incorporating the right colour and contrast is also important for a design. The foreground and background colours should complement each other and not create an irritation to the eyes. You may try to make the cover too vibrant, but it can result in eye-jerk of the readers. You may have to alter the shade of colours on a photo in case you want to place a text over it. This is one of the most common magazine cover design techniques that experts imple- ment.

Be creative with the cover design Being innovative with colour incorporation does not indicate over packing the cover with colours. It should bear a cultured, trendy, yet sophisticated look. The cover of your magazine attracts the buyers, so you have no point in wasting your efforts in the inside pages if it goes unsold.

Make sure that the cover does not look dull and drab. It should live up to the taste of your audience. The colour combination, text, photos and other elements should enjoy a natural synthesis in the cover. You need to pick a subtle way to accommodate all these features on the cover page.

Incorporate a single colour pop on the cover You may think that using different colour combinations may make the cover attractive, but in reality, readers love to see a single colour-pop on the covers. A popular trend among certain types of magazine covers is to combine a vibrant colour with a black and white theme. It makes the covers look sleek and sporty. Travel and sports magazines often follow this style, where they use a single pop colour, like bright orange or yellow on the black and white theme. You can try out light colours like sky blue to create a difference. Old-fashioned photography with monochrome colour may also make the cover interesting.

Focus on the content page of your magazine After the outside cover, the most important page is the content page. It should guide the readers about the location of the articles and other materials. Write the headings in bold and use the colours effectively, so that it creates a soothing sensation on the eyes. Most of the successful magazines include vibrant photographs along with the titles in the contents page. Organize the content page well, so that the key attractions of your magazine in terms of content do not go unnoticed. You can also style up the page numbers, using a different font, larger in SIZ size. A well-crafted content page makes your magazine contents more palatable.

Use illustrated graphics The graphics and illustrations you incorporate on the business magazine layout design should reflect the theme of the issue. It is necessary to provide the audience with a concept about what the issue is about. A seamless illustration carries this message, conveying the crux of the theme. Include explanatory illustrations on the covers. Along with headlines, texts and other design elements, illustrated graphics make a magazine cover elegant. You can also use smooth graphics, which can easily be designed, to make the magazine attractive. You may use vector designs on the covers to put forward more detailed and complex ideas. However, this is applicable for magazines that do not belong to popular categories like fashion or lifestyle. Whether you draw the illustrations or use vector graphics, make sure that it looks unique and carries the character of your magazine.

Craft a mood for your readers You need to position your brand through your magazine and typical companies offering magazine layout design services specializing in the same. Therefore, create a mood that the readers will enjoy while going through it. Each magazine has its own set of readers and you need to keep their likes and preferences in mind. It is necessary to create an image which you would love to enjoy among the readers. The typographical style, font, photos and other elements used in the cover design are crucial for the same. You may want your target audience to view you as a trendy magazine, or one carrying the traditional essence and heritage. You need to design the magazine in such a way that it carries this message. It is recommended to retain the same typographical style on the cover, though you may change the colours and photos.

Further tips to make your cover attractive If you have a model facing the audience on the cover, make sure that the eyes of the model should look directly into the camera. It will intensify the effect of the facial expression.

You can experiment with various design elements on the cover, but retain the style and concept. A stable design style of the cover creates a sense of distinction in the minds of your readers.

Add a dominant headline on the cover. It should look catchy in terms of attitude, colour and size. Companies offering marketing material design services usually have copywriters with them who can assist in this regard.

Every cover needs a catchy element to captivate the attention of the audience. It may be a headline, an image, a number or anything else.

Well, you must note that red is the most used colour on magazine covers, while green is the least. Incorporate a good variation among the colours to craft a splendid cover.

When you design the cover for a new edition, make it different from the last edition. Similar colours often confuse the buyers.

You will definitely find these tips for crafting magazine design beneficial when you deign your magazine cover.

Innovate, feel the pulse of your readers and create a unique identity for your magazine by designing a flawless cover. If you are least confident to proceed by yourself, there is always an option for you to seek services from an expert graphic design company in India.