What makes a good magazine front cover?

• When designing a cover you can play around, you should remain within your concept and style and you should know what to exaggerate.
• Each cover needs one headline that will pop out. In size, in colour, in attitude.
• The cover page should have a focus point. It can be a model in the image it can be a headline or a number, but something has to draw the eye.
• Divide your cover in three sections. Big one with main cover line, smaller one with few cover lines and the smallest one with few more cover lines.
• Most magazines like the magazine layout to be consistent from one edition to another and the same applies to the cover, this is why notorious magazines tend to keep their style for a pretty long time until they change it.
• Merge the image and the background
• The use of colour on covers is extremely important and as with any area of design, the colour-scheme that you choose will affect the tone and overall feeling of the cover.

NRS and ABC

NRS

The National Readership Survey (NRS) was established in 1956 and today provides the most authoritative and valued audience research in use for print and digital advertising trading in Britain.

The survey covers over 250 of Britain’s major news brands and magazines, showing the size and nature of the audiences they achieve.

NRS PADD:

PADD stands for Print And Digital Data and it is a fusion of NRS print data and com Score digital data. It is a single database for planning across print and digital platforms of NRS publisher brand and is led by requirement from their stakeholders for NRS to represent the expanding reach of publisher brands through non-print platforms. PADD will provide full data for profiling and targeting and focus on which websites a publications readers visit.

NRS - Readership - People who read it

ABC

ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations), the industry body for media measurement.

They inspire market confidence by delivering a valued stamp of trust across the media world. Their data is used by a wide range of decision makers: Media owners, Media agencies, Advertisers, Rights owners, Investors and Management

ABC has two distinct roles:

• To bring industry together to agree standards that define media measurement and determine best practice.
• To offer independent audit and compliance services, delivering certification which verifies that data and processes meet the industry-agreed Reporting Standards

ABC - Circulation - Copies sold

David Carson

David Carson

David Carson is an American graphic designer, art director. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun, in which he employed much of the typographic and layout style for which he is known. In particular, his widely imitated aesthetic defined the so-called "grunge typography" era.
Carson's style of typographic experimentation influenced the development of the deconstruction style of design and a whole new generation of designers. The experiments by Carson and other Ray Gun designers were chaotic, abstract and distinctive, but sometimes illegible. The magazine's radical subject matter often related to music and pop culture icons and the magazine became a reliable source for the prediction of up-and-coming stars.

"He significantly influenced a generation to embrace typography as an expressive medium" - Steven Heller, 2010

Would I attempt this design?

I would like to attempt a design like this because it is very intriguing and would most definitely catch many readers' attention, however it may be quite hard to do so I would make it a bit simpler yet make it still eye-catching

Shindig! magazines

Shindig! began in 1992 as a photocopied garage-punk fanzine called Gravedigger. A couple of years on editor Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills and PJ Crittenden reinvented the title as Shindig! as a tip of the hat to the ABC TV show that took The British Invasion to America and paved the way for folk-rock, garage music and everything that followed.  After a long, and eventually destructive, relationship with Volcano Publishing – that took the magazine to the high streets of the world – Shindig! entered 2016, the other side of its celebrated 50th issue, bigger and better, thanks to fabulous new publisher Silverback. Shindig! re-emerged under the wing of Volcano Publishing in the early noughties and has been popular throughout the high street ever since, growing way beyond its garage roots.

Bauer Media

Bauer Media UK is an entertainment network of iconic, multi-platform brands.
The business became part of the Bauer Media Group in 2008. Founded in Hamburg in 1875 by Johann Bauer.
The Bauer Media Group operates in 19 countries including the UK, Germany, Poland, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. 

Some of their Brands:
Mojo
Q
Kerrang!
Heat
KISS
Grazia
Empire
TV Choice
Take a Break
Magic
Absolute Radio

• 570+ magazines
• 300 + digital products
• 50 radio and TV stations
• 11,000 employees worldwide
• Annual turnover of 1.79 billion Euros

Content:

• Informing and entertaining
• Fresh and surprising
• Relentlessly relevant to the communities we inspire and connect with
• Standing out from the competition & consistently better.

Market Research Methods

Qualitative Research -  The human touch - interviews, surveys and observation

Quantitative Research - Data - statistics and numbers

Secondary Research - Using existing research

Primary Research - Research you conducted yourself

 

Advantages of qualitative research

• This type of research does not need a strict design plan before it begins
• The researcher gains more detailed and rich data in the form of comprehensive written descriptions or visual evidence, such as photographs
• Looks at context and social meaning and how it affects individuals, which is advantageous particularly in the social sciences

Disadvantages of qualitative research

• This research is heavily involved in the process, which gives the researcher a subjective view of the study and its participants
• The researcher interprets the research according to his or her own biased view, which skews the data gathered
• This research method is very time consuming and can last for months or even years

Advantages of quantitative research

• Quantitative research allows the researcher to measure and analyse data. This is advantageous because the researcher is more objective about the findings of the research
• Can be used to test hypotheses in experiments because of its ability to measure data using statistics

Disadvantages of quantitative research

• The context of the study or experiment is ignored
• Does not study things in a natural setting or discuss the meaning things have for different people as qualitative research does
• A large sample of the population must be studied; the larger the sample of people researched, the more statistically accurate the results will be

Advantages of primary research

• Targeted Issues are addressed
• Data interpretation is better
• Recency of Data - we can use data that is much more useful for us
• Proprietary Issues

Disadvantages of primary research

• High Cost
• Time Consuming
• Inaccurate Feed backs
• Larger number of resources are required

Advantages of secondary research

• Time and Cost effective
• Extensiveness of data
• Basis of Primary Research

Disadvantages of secondary research

• Inaccuracy of data
• Needs to understand various parameters and assumptions that primary research had taken while collected information
  
• Time lag issues
• May not be specific
• Proprietary Issues

I have used mainly secondary data because it was faster to produce, however I think I should also add more primary data because it is more accurate as I have found the research myself.