Codes and Coventions for a Film Magazine Front Page

When I make the film magazine front cover there are many codes and conventions that I have to take into account; if this is done the magazine front cover will be a more successful product. The codes and conventions mix in with the target audience as they should try and attract the target audience selected by the manufacturers for the magazine. Codes and conventions are spilt down into three main groups; these are technical, symbolic and text.

The technical side of the codes and conventions for a magazine front cover can be made up from photo techniques used, the shots, the models, characters and where it is placed on the page. On magazines such as ‘Nuts’ and ‘The Zoo’, they have a beautiful model women on the front cover, this is so they can attract men 18 years old and over who like women, the production team also place the picture in the centre of the page so it is the first thing that the reader looks at. The picture itself can relate to the audience for the magazine, this will be important when choosing the picture for the front cover of my film magazine as it will show the audience of the magazine what the type of audience for the film.

The symbolic side to the code and conventions for a magazine front cover would be made up will be made up of the models costume, colours and who is in the pictures e.g. a celebrity. Colours and costume can affect the whole look of the front cover for example red can mean love or lust etc.

The text part of a film magazine front cover would be the font, font size, colour, amount and location of text.