Magazine Lay-out Design

Characteristics of a good magazine lay-out design

1)  Bold Font

2)  Enlarged, centred main image relevant to the theme

3) Appealing colours to the main audience

4) Mast head - biggest text of the front cover

5) Headings (Main Cover/Cover Line)

6) Puff

7) Page references with articles

8) Tag Line

9) Hierarchy

10) Publisher

11) Buzz Word

12) Sky Line

13) Serif (Complex/Handwritten) and Sans Serif (Simple) font

What is a Font?

A font is a set of printable or displayable text characters in a specific style and size.

What is the difference between serif and sans serif fonts?

A Serif font has small, decorative flourishes at the end of each character stroke while  a Sans Serif font does not have such flourishes at the end stroke of each character.

Why do magazines use a vary of fonts and colours?

A vary of fonts and colours are used in a magazine to appeal to the target audience such as a sans serif font with a bold red colour as a mast head would appeal to the male audience while a serif font with a light pink colour as a mast head would appeal to the female audience.

What is a complimentary colour?

A complimentary colour are colours that are opposite colours that are on the colour circle. These opposite colours also harmonise with each other, giving an appealing look to the target audience.

What is an Analagous colour?

Analogous colors are groups of three colors that are next to each other on the color wheel, with one being the dominant color, which tends to be a primary or secondary color, and a tertiary.

What is a Masthead?

A masthead is the title of a newspaper or magazine at the head of the first or editorial page.

What is a cover line?

Cover lines are short statements found on the cover of the magazine that allude to or describe the articles inside.

What is a 'main cover line'?

The centre cover line which aims to appeal to the target audience such as relevant content of the main article such as the line 'Star Wars' in the front cover. 

What is the 'Left third' and the 'Right 2/3rd'?

The left and right third is the content that shows the magazines main article and information which shows the audience what content is inside without even picking the magazine up.

Why are barcodes and dates uses?

Barcodes and dates are used so that the customer knows the issue number and for what price the magazine can be purchased.