MAGAZINE Some fresh ideas for design features

Having considered the sample range of magazine covers, just some of the ideas we picked up on are:

• allowing the subject to cover part of the masthead; the Look example adds the idea of partly doing this but also bringing the title back on top of the subbject (the 'loo' and 'k' are different layers)
• using 4 colours (more gets messy, but may be appropriate for tween/younger audiences)
• varying font, size, case and colour within a story trail
• using lines to separate story trails - Rolling Stone takes this a step further with nice graphic design effects
• using sticker-style circles, including to highlight price
• using solid shapes (we saw triangles as well as circles and squares, rectangles...) to put trails in
• using colour outlines around fonts
• making a font 'see-through'
• framing the trail linked to the cover star over their body
• creating a shape/3D effect with text, as with the di Caprio Empire cover
• highlight numbers as a means of emphasizing value