How to Design a Magazine Cover

Your magazine cover defines what you are for your potential readers--but it is not the editorial product (not entirely). It is also the sales flyer for your publication. When putting your publications, therefore, consider several simple rules:

1) Catch the eye. In a store environment, most browswers stand six to eight feet back when scanning a newsstand. Your logo, image, and cover lines muse therefore attract attention and tell their story from a distance. How will you do that?
With a strong central image, easily legible cover lines, lots of contrast; use these tools and you are off to a good start.

2) Identify your product. Your logo should be bold, clear, and instantly identifiable. Studies show that an unobstructed logo provides the most instant recognition; a logo placed on a busy background or semi-obscured by the cover image will have a harder time of doing its job.

3) Offer a benefit. This is the job of your cover lines. Think of your cover lines as ad copy. Every one of them is meant to entice the reader to pick up your magazine, thumb through it, buy it, read it. They are selling your product to the reader. How will they do that? By offering something readers want. This means knowledge, information, tips, how-to, and, of course, entertainment.

4) Be exciting. Offer free tips, a special guide, an exclusive insight, new information, bonus material. This offers something urgent and timely, and overcomes a certain degree of buying resistance.

5) Be specific. Don't just offer gardening tips, offer tips on how to grow the biggest, reddest tomatos possible. Rather than offering sewing patterns, offer 21 new patterns for spring fashion.

6) Be energetic. Drop the "ings." Instead of "training your pet," use "train your pet". Instead of "learning windows," promise people they will "learn windows."

7) Showcase the product. If you are publishing a computer magazine, the cover image should be a computer. A child magazine should feature a child as a cover image (as opposed to the family, the parents, and so on). One child is better than a group of children; one athlete, on a sports publication, will usually beat a team.

By sticking with a clean look, a clear and singular image, and a message which is benefit-oriented and perceived at a glance, you will have a cover that will not fail to draw interested readers to your publication.