Magazine+Cover+Questions

Jade Fang and Keira Lowlind

1) Bush & Cheney: http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20090803,00.html; Aug. 3rd, 2009 Obama: Hope: http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20081229,00.html; Dec. 29th, 2008

2) Both of the covers feature portrait shots US presidents. The mood of the photograph is clearly portrayed, and reflects the general public's opinion at the time. Though the characters of the covers are contrasting, both evoke strong emotions within the viewer.

3) The main story on the first cover is about the downfall or replacement of Bush and Cheney. The story relates to the cover because the two men were especially portrayed in a rather creepy and unappealing manner. Half of Bush's face is cut off, which suggests insincerity, and that he's leaving the picture. Also, Cheney is slightly out of focus, and behind Bush. He has a look of contempt on his face, which suggests his displeasure towards having to leave his position. Though the second cover doesn't have words on the cover albeit the "Person of the Year" proclamation over the "Time" title, Obama's face speaks in volumes. This iconic poster of Obama is so well known that it is pretty much synonymous with a feeling of hope. His upward gaze and open demeanour signifies his ever hopeful, pro-future attitude.

4) The design principles within the first cover include the use of empty space, rule of thirds, having a clear foreground, and element relationship, along with some nice guiding lines. The placement of the two men creates a nice triangle of empty space towards the left of the cover, putting a nice focus on the special report. Their eyes form a convenient line along the top third of the shot. As previously stated Bush, is in foreground, and very in focus while Cheney is in the background. The element relationship between them has a certain tension, and a juxtaposition in their difference of expression. The second cover makes very good use of American colours, which symbolizes how he represents the American people. Direction is used as he leads the eye upwards to his gaze. The whole portrait is a single and simple point, and also uses good colour space and balance.

5) Most of the earliest magazine covers were simple drawings or paintings, usually featuring a single object or person engaged in some activity that would suggest the theme for the rest of the magazine. They could also be sketches of headshots of important people who were presumably going to be discussed within. Sometimes black and white portrait photographs were also used on the cover, though still interspersed with illustrations from cover to cover. Cover lines weren't used much in the earlier covers; usually a caption was used under the cover picture explaining who the person was, and on what page the article about them could be found. Otherwise, the only text was the title, volume, price, and date. The first colour cover from Time magazine was in 1928, and it slowly became the norm.

6) A poster cover was typically thought of as one that was so good, it was framable. They ideally had a bold title, and a distinctive cover image, whether illustrated or photographed. For many poster covers early on, a general theme or mood would be conveyed, but many times they didn't even have anything to do with the content inside. Cover lines eventually cluttered the poster cover, and were deemed undesirable for framing.

7) The purpose of a cover line is to capture the reader's attention, which became more and more important as more and more magazines became available. Even a small magazine rack in a corner store has a multitude of colours, images, and text that visually assault the buyer into choosing them.

8) Integrated covers worked the typography, the cover line topics, and even the colour and positioning of the text in with the pose of the subject within the shot. By the time integrated covers were widely used, photographs and studio portraits dominated magazine covers. The fonts would closely coordinate with each other, though taking care not to overuse a single distinct one, and would be set apart using size, colour, blocking, and positioning. Both text and photo would be overlapped in different places, depending on the importance of each. The layered effect created a more dimensional feel to the cover, carefully leading the reader around the cover and focus wherever they wanted it to be directed.

9) Cover lines can be either very effective, or very detrimental to a magazine's cover. While they can indeed capture a reader's attention, they can also clutter the cover, or overload it with information, leading to the reader being disengaged by the confusing visuals and too much text. They can give a cover a very unbalanced effect by standing out too much or being positioned too much on one side, or blend too much with surrounding graphics. They must not crowd the title or the picture, and be short and snappy enough to catch attention at a short glance, yet long enough to give a bit of detail so the reader knows what the magazine contains.

10) __Outside the box:__ These cover lines tended to be smaller and unobtrusive, allowing ample space for the picture without clutter, and placing cover lines above or below the main picture. This type depended on the graphic to catch the eye of readers, and not the cover line.  __Inside the box:__ Though this type of cover line was integrated within the picture, the text would be on its own block of colour, usually of a strong colour to stand out from the picture.  __Columns:__ An extension to inside the box style cover lines, a column would run through the entire page in a single colour, effectively supplying a space where extra text could be placed. Though the column cut the page unevenly, the graphics used were placed to balance the composition of the cover.  __Zones:__ This style is similar to outside the box, as the cover lines are not integrated with the picture. But unlike outside the box, the picture was reduced in size to allow more space for a variety of cover lines. The zones in their most basic form consisted of the title and issue space, then the picture zone underneath, and finally with various cover lines under that. __Banners and Corners:__ This style integrated text into cover graphics without disrupting the image too much, but still making a statement. Angles were used to capture attention, as they stood out from the standard, horizontal typeset. __Unplanned and Planned Spaces:__ These edged more to the integrated covers we see today, as the unplanned spaces style placed text in the perimeters of a main subject. Empty space was subsequently filled with cover lines, and the layering began. Planned spaces used areas such as billboards, books, or anything that would normally have words on it. The text was blanked out and replaced with the cover lines desired, leading to a very integrated cover.