Total Film Collage

We had created a collage of all the Total Film magazine covers in order to show some of the research that we have assembled whilst exploring this company. The magazine covers above include covers for a range of di9fferent genres, varying from: Romance to Thriller. It is an important source to see whether the magazine had particular conventions for specific genres or whether the layouts remained the same within every issue. From examining the magazine covers that we’ve selected it became apparent that every magazine cover has the same conventions as one another, there were consistent themes throughout each magazine, however in some the titling font has changed, I believe they are older issues of the magazine and therefore the updates were sharper and uppercased. I believe the magazine is very typical and doesn’t challenge any type of conventions of a magazine cover. However the success of the magazine is evident because the title is rarely ever completely exposed, the image has the tendency to cover it. If it doesn’t need to be exposed to its full potential it suggests that people are already very aware of the magazine. We will use this collage when we are producing our own magazine as it inspires ideas and gives us a specific layout to follow.  It shows what elements we need to include and what features aren’t as important. There are various features that all the magazines present, these are:

• Strap line at the top of the covers
• Bar-code
• Tag lines
• Advertisements of other films as well as the main film which is being advertised
• A model who is composed in the centre of the page, who are presented in front of the 'Total Film' label, providing they don't cover most of the title.
• A background which doesn't have a 'busy' design, which evidently allows the main subject (being the centre photograph) to command full attention from the audience.

I believe the entire magazine covers to be particularly engaging and provide a pre-conceived idea of what genre the film being advertised is, it may also give away the narrative of the film. The magazine cover uses clear and concise texts and fonts, a wide variety of bold fonts and colouring have been used throughout to make the covers more visually appealing. The magazine always uses the main character of the film or the most famous; the most famous are obviously most recognised and therefore entices the audience further into seeing what it is. Most actors presented on the magazines are very visually attractive which engages the audience into buying the magazine as they’re fairly good looking. The person featured on the front could be the target audience’s idol and therefore acts as the influential figure tempting the person into wanting to buy the produce.