Magazine+Cover+Assignment

=Step 1: Research and Questions=

1.Choose two Time magazine covers. Record the URL and the issue date.
September 14th, 2001

July 21st, 1975

2. What do both covers have in common?
Both magazines have some sort of border highlighting the main picture with the name of the magazine in bold.

3. What is the main story in that issue and how does it relate to the image on the cover?
The main story in the first issue was the 9/11 terrorist attacks of the World Trade Center. The picture on the cover is of the twin towers burning so it relates quite clearly to the story. The main story in the second issue was the so called "end" to the space race and the joint mission between the USA and the then Soviet Union. The picture on the cover shows two hands painted with the American flag and Soviet Union shaking hands and coming to an agreement which does relate to the story.

4. What design principles are evident in the cover image? Explain.
In both covers, there is colour contrast between both the image and text and the background as well as between the different colours of the image. The first magazine is also uncluttered as the background is a solid blue sky and it contain diagonals in the two building

5. What were some characteristics of early magazine covers?
Early magazine covers seemed to look like book covers more then magazines. They were black and white, usually had a single image in the middle with some sort of decoration around the outside and had no special editing.

6. What are some characteristics of the poster cover?
Poster covers (mid 20's-50's) are covers that were mainly focused on the image and had very little, if any cover lines. For example, earlier edditions of Vogue mainly consisted of a large illustration or photograph and a simpler title.

7. What is the purpose of cover lines?
The purpose of cover lines is to intrigue the readers to open and read the stories inside of the magazine. They make the make the magazine more exciting, more interetesting and give a magazine a more appealing aspect compared to magazines with less cover lines surrounding it.

8. What is an integrated cover?
An integrated cover has an image that is visually appealing to readers yet leaves room for cover lines without overlapping the picture too much.

9. How can the placement of cover lines effect the overall design of a cover?
The placement of cover lines can be the difference betweeen a magazine looking overly "crowded" with a lot of information or a magazine that still has quite a bit of information but the organization of the cover lines allows it to pop to the readers eye in a clear manner.

Outside the box:
The outside the box style of cover lines was the primary style for earlier magazines. The different aspects of the magazine (title, image and text and other publication information) were seperated by different boxes. This also made it easier in the printing process. **Inside the box:** I n side the box cover lines were created as a wa ﻿ y to more easily place text on top of an illustration. The illustrators were able to create boxes inside the illustration where text could also be placed.

Columns:
Another way to display text on a magazine is creating a coloured vertical column either down the right or left side of the magazine. This makes for a clear way to display the text and allowing the rest of the cover space for the main illustration.

Zones:
Using the zone style of cover lines allowed illustrators to seperate the text, title, and image in different horizontal zones.

Banners & Corners:
Banners were often used by attention-grabbing magazines were the banner of bold text would be angled across a corner.

Unplanned & Planned Spaces:
The unplanned spaces approach is putting text in empty spaces around the cover that look like they were left empty on accident. Planned spaces is when text is placed in clever spaces that seems to fit the writing.