Magazine Research

As I will be creating the front cover to a magazine featuring my film, I thought I could do some research into different film magazines and how they present their main features. I will need to consider typewrite, imagery and what other stories will feature on the cover. For some ideas I have collected some images of the popular film magazine Empire.

This cover features the kind of background image I would feature in my own piece, as I have decided to take the image on a field, the sky will take up a lot of the cover as on this. I can see that it would work photographically and catches the viewers attention through the vivid colour.
The articles to the side of the image often display films which are related in some way to the audience or genre of the feature film, this is something I will have to consider when choosing what text to have around the image, if I decide to have any at all.

Each cover has a different typewrite depending on the film and theme, as you can see on this, the title of the film's font appears damaged or beaten, which relates to the gritty nature of the film. It also has a very graffitiesque feel , which fits in with the rebellious look of the female character on the cover.
The Empire logo continues to stay in the same position on the magazine with the same font through out the issues giving it a consistency which is not shown with the rest of the text. It makes it obvious that that part is the main title although it is obscured by the main image in many cases.

This image for Empire is very shadowed and horroresque, it relates to the very dark nature of the film and of the actor and character featured, who of course was the center of media attention in the film due to his tragic and mysterious death.
The writing is in a yet again vandalised style, which relates to the other online and offline artifacts related with the film, often showing the Joker defacing and editing things in his own style.
As you can see the Empire logo is often partially blocked out or obscured by the image on the cover, although it is so well known that it almost doesn't need to be shown as the font and placement is automatically recognizable.

This image differs greatly from the usually fairly cluttered front page of Empire. This issue's main feature is a dedication to the Godfather, and so all attention is focused on the iconic image of Marlon Brando as the infamous Godfather. It is extremely eye catching although it is painfully simple. When you have an image as iconic as this it speaks for itself, not needing to be emphasised by bright colours and clutter.
This very simple layout is also something to consider, as I want my image to stand out to a passerby's eye, to really jump out.





Empire's versatile covers are a good source of inspiration for my own magazine, I need to think about my layout and how I want the features/titles to be presented with colour etc. Getting the image will be the first step, then I can fit the rest around it. I will also look at some other film orientated magazines to get a wide range of ideas.