design

Nowhere in a magazine is the interaction of words and pictures more important than on the front cover. The cover has to do two key jobs for a magazine: 'it has to sell the general concept of the publication as well as to reflect, through its design, the intellectual level of the editorial content’ (swann). Other commentators suggest it has more personal rather than intellectual functions: ‘it is the magazine’s face...like a person’s face it is the primary indicator of a personality’ (click and Baird).
What’s more, the cover has to do this more or less instantaneously, in an environment where the newsagents customers may be milling around and where there are selves bearing hundreds of titles including all the rivals in any given field. If it’s doing its job really well, then the cover will tempt readers away from those rivals too, as John Morrish notes in his book about magazine editing: ‘The fundamental thing is for the cover to sell the issue, both to your regular readers...and to other peoples readers, who might be looking for a change'.
The cover is the magazines only opportunity to make an impact at the point of sale.