Magazine Cover Task Research And Planning

I looked at two magazine covers and two DVD of two of the most popular existing children's TV dramas, these being Tracey Beaker and Doctor Who. Below I have inserted into my post the two latest DVD covers for both series and from these I have recognized and extracted certain conventions I wish to use in my print production task.







I straight away recognised from glancing over both magazine covers that they were both very jumbled up covers and there was no sense of order to both of them. This allowed me to conclude that this strategy is used to attract the target audience because it looks like there's alot going on and will not make the reader bored quickly.

I then noticed that both magazine covers had the main character's images taken in mid shot. This is effective as it uses a direct adress to the audience and connotes importance of that particular character taking up a large part of the page compared to anything else.

On both covers the layout was almost chaotic and very informal with a mixture of animation, images, and graphics. The trarget audience as it gives them more to look at and I think that with the target audience we are both trying to attract that quantity is an important factor from analysing both magazine covers. This is mopre important than the quality of the text because the target audience age we are targeting will be more intetrested in images and colour than reading.

A convention I am keen on using is the cover lines used to form a menu back at the bottom of the page on the tracy beaker magazine. This is used in bold, clear text and lots of colour to help attract the reader to look inside by giving a taster and creating expectations of the magazine.

I also noticed how lighting was used in the Doctor Who magazine front cover to connote danger which is trying to be acheived by the expression on Doctor Who's face, the colors of red and orange used, the sci-fi creature used and the strapline reading 'RED ALERT'.