...Unless it's a magazine
An editor’s main concern is the magazine’s front cover. The front cover is very important because it should instantly convey to a viewer what the magazine is about and also it must be unique enough in design to make it stand out on the shelf. For already well established magazine brands, magazine front covers must maintain certain conventions (for example magazine title font) so that it is easy to recognize by regular readers.
With Kerrang! magazine the editor incorporates a variety of features into the front cover to ensure the magazine appeals to a larger readership. Kerrang! is a rock music magazine and rock is a largely spanned genre with many subgenres to its name. The editor ensures that everyone who enjoys the genre is addressed by showing on the front cover that many of these subgenres, for example punk and indie, are included in the magazine.
Freebies and collectibles are another main selling point of this magazine, this is because the magazines readership mostly consists of teenagers and teenagers respond very positively to gifts that allow them to express their interests. This is why such as gifts as stickers posters and themed calendars are very popular. Kerrang! magazine have also published special edition issues witch feature alternate front covers, this introduces a collective element to the magazine which engages new readers as well as appealing to existing ones.
Around four times a year a free CD is also issued with the magazine. Whilst this does boost magazine sales greatly for that issue this cannot be done so frequently because including cover mounted CD’s is a very costly production and as a result would raise the overall cost of the magazine. Since Kerrang! is weekly magazine so a price increase could see sales of the magazine drop drastically.
Mixmag is a dance magazine that uses a cover mounted CD’s as one of its main selling points. The reason why a free mix CD can be issued with every magazine is that the magazine is distributed monthly. This allows for this price of the magazine to be quite dear. When taking magazine price into consideration the target readership plays a major role. The readership of Kerrang! magazine consists mainly of teenagers, and as teenagers don’t often have a high disposable income it makes sense for the magazine to be cheaper. On the other hand the readership of Mixmag consists of older teenagers and younger adults who are more likely to be able afford the magazine.
The two most important areas on a magazine front cover are the top of the page and what it is known in the industry as the “sweet spot”. The top of the page is very important for obvious reasons; this is conventionally where the title of the magazine title/logo is placed. Peoples eyes naturally start viewing a page from the top, but also placing the magazine title or logo here ensures it will still be visible on a shelf where other magazines might be obscuring the rest of the cover. The sweet spot is also another very important area because after surveying the top, peoples eyes then naturally move down to this area located in the middle-right of the cover. This area is used to display the most enticing information such as advertising exclusive interviews.
Editors of magazines are always looking to accomplish two things with the magazine front cover. The first thing is reassuring the reader. Reassuring the reader means telling their readership that they are still the same magazine that offers the same content they are accustomed to, this is done by maintaining certain conventions or keeping a house style. Although magazines must uphold these certain conventions the second thing editors try is to do is something different. By doing something different they offer something new to their readership which stops them losing interest in the magazine as well as stopping the magazine from becoming repetitive.
