Magazine Lay-out Design

Characteristics of a Good Magazine Layout Design

• a main image which often takes up most of the space on the magazine front cover
• a main article which is usually quite bold, it uses specific words to draw the reader in
• bright colours and font to make the magazine appear more interesting
• masthead-the biggest text on the cover
• Headings/sub headings (cover line)
• articles with page references
• puff (freebie)
• issue number
• tagline
• heirarchy 

Font is the way a text is printed, the style, size and visual appearance of the text.

serif is a font which is generally seen as being more informal, sans serif is the opposite and is used for more formal texts. sans serif is used to get the attention of the reader.

Many magazines include a variety of fonts and colours to make the magazine more exciting, a variety of texts and colours will make the magazine appeal more to the reader 

Complimentary colours are two colours which create contrast for a media effect, it makes the magazine more appealing to the reader.

analogous colours are a group of three colours which are next to each other on the colour wheel

a masthead is the main title of the magazine, it is usually the biggest piece of text on the cover. an example of a typical masthead is shown on the right

a cover line is usually tell the reader about stories/articles within the magazine, they are smaller than the masthead to make it stand out. a cover line usually includes a list of names or articles to help the reader find something within the magazine.

a main cover line is usually the main story/article, it is the most bold text after the masthead

The left third takes up a third of the magazine space on the left side, it displays important information incase the remaining two-thirds is covered. it doesn't obstruct the main image but contains al the relevant information. the right 2/3rd is the remaining space which is covered by other magazines.

barcodes and date/time lines are used to indicate when the issue was released, it also informs the reader of the issue number and keeps them up to date with the magazine