How to Design a Magazine Cover?

When we look at a well-prepared magazine cover, we can easily guess what it is about, to whom it is addressed, and what we may encounter when we browse its pages. This should be the first aim of people who will start preparing magazine covers. The most important answer to the question of how the magazine cover is prepared is as follows: Anyone who sees the magazine cover should be able to understand which magazine it belongs to without reading its name. In other words, the cover of the magazine should engrave the corporate identity of the magazine into people’s minds.

So, let’s examine how this unique and impressive cover is made. People who make and will design magazine covers should first examine the covers of magazines that have been in business for a long time and have a visual taste in this regard. Before starting a business in particular, it is necessary to examine the magazines of the same quality and the sector, and to try to understand how the magazine cover plays a role in their success. The next question to be asked is who is the target audience of the magazine? Target audience research will also make it easier for us to make choices about the colors to be used, font styles, and color transitions. The text and the image used should create a balance. It is very important that the fonts are not too diverse, and that the fonts balance each other. We have to create a plain image.

After the target audience research, we can decide whether we should give more importance to the visual or the content by understanding what attracts the attention of the target audience at first glance. While the visual should be prioritized in a study prepared for the magazine sector, it is of great importance that the visual is chosen in a way that does not kill the impact of the content in different sectors. The visual we will use should be chosen to summarize the content of the magazine. In the light of all this, if we do our experiments with paper and pencil before we start to prepare a magazine cover design, we will start a job that is almost ready in our minds and the time we will spend in front of the screen will decrease.