RESEARCH AND PLANNING - film magazine front cover - total film

The magazine front covers are from the film magazine - Total Film. Although they are from the same magazine there are considerable differences between the two:
This front cover has very little writing, there is the title of the magazine across the top, it is in a large font and the white and black writing make it stand out from the rest of the cover. The only other bit of writing on the over is to advertise the magazines website. There is one main image, this image is of Harry Potter, in a way as these films are so big the image needs no words to accompany it, the makes of the cover could also think that the film has a wide enough audience that there is no need to advertise what else is featured in the magazine. This technique would only word with films as big as Harry Potter.

The similarities to this front cover is the position of the title of the magazine and that there is one main image. However on this cover there is a lot of text to go with the image and also advertise what else is in the magazine. Six different films are advertised on this front cover, adverts for Charlie and the chocolate factory appear the most (three times) but this is a typical convention as the image is of a very well known actor who is one of the main roles in that film. The magazine has a bar code and stars are used to break up sentences, words such as 'ultimate' are also used to attract the audience. The magazine even has its own tag line to try and entice people to buy it.

I think this is a good way to set out a magazine front cover as it gives lots of information about what is inside, looks professional but still not overly serious or boring. We will keep these things in mind when we create our own magazine cover.

Rach.