COLOURS AND FONTS

SIM

The use of colours and fonts is very important to the selling and branding of a magazine. The use of particular ones work to convey a message to

the audience further than the one given by more obvious elements of the magazine (i.e. main image). Certain colours and fonts work in a

combination to attract a certain audience and there are clear examples of this in the industry –

for example, magazines aimed at preteen girls may use bubble font in an array of pink and

purple colours in the hope it’ll attract their aimed audience.

There are two main types of fonts:SERIF SANS SERIF

GaramondLucinda BrightPerpetuaPalatino Linotype

Serif fonts are typefaces with serifs, which are essentially like feet at the ends of . SOME EXAMPLES OF SERIF FONTS…

You are unlikely to see any use of serif fonts in magazines due to their antiquated look being slightly outdated for contemporary magazines.

Sans Serif fonts are typefaces without serifs.

SOME EXAMPLES OF SANS SERIF FONTS…Trebuchet MSCentury GothicImpactVerdanaSans Serif fonts are more common in magazine publication due to their structure and bold use of lettering, they work well in catching the audience’s eye.

FONTS IN MAGAZINESFONTS APPROPRIATE FOR MAGAZINES…GILL SANS ULTRA BOLD CONDENSEDFRANKLIN GOTHIC DEMI

FONTS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR MAGAZINES…

CAMBRIA

GOUDY OLD STYLEThese fonts, being serif fonts, wouldn’t be appropriate to use in magazines especially a Hip Hop one. It’s not very eye catching and its hard to imagine someone taking the time to pay keen attention to this whilst on a shop shelf. They’re also fairly hard fonts to read at first glance making it unsuitable for the first impression magazines wish to give.

These fonts, being sans serif, are much more appropriate to use in a magazine publication. They're much more clear and structured than serif fonts making them easy to read and very eye catching at first glance. Due to this, they’d be especially good to use for mastheads and article headings.

HAND WRITTEN FONTS IN MAGAZINESHand written fonts aren’t technically conventional to use in magazines due to them being quite difficult to read and not particularly eye catching. However, they do add a human element and some magazines do use them in their editorial pages or their advice columns.EXAMPLES OF HAND WRITTEN FONTS…

Monotype CorsivaScript MT BoldPristinaAR BlancaLucinda Handwriting

SIZE OF FONTS

LARGER FONT

SMALL FONTS

Font sizes used in magazines differ depending on where they're used.Large fonts would be of better use in areas like the cover and main article titles as they're easier to read and work well in catching the audience’s attention.

COLOURSThe use of colours in a magazines production is vital. Some colours work well together to create a colour scheme/house style, it’s important to achieve a suitable colour scheme that runs throughout your publication as this creates a brand for your magazine, if you use colours that don’t end up complimenting each other it can ruin the entire essence of the magazine and discourage consumers to buy it. Different colours have different connotations and is highly important to consider when applying the scheme to your genre.

Yellow h a s m a n y c o n n o t a t i o n s , s o m e o f w h i c h b e i n g …- Happiness- Confidence- Optimism- Aspiration

Red h a s m a n y c o n n o t a t i o n s , s o m e o f w h i c h b e i n g …- Love- Danger- Triumph- Desire

Blue h a s m a n y c o n n o t a t i o n s , s o m e o f

w h i c h b e i n g …- Calm - Logic

- Stability- Loyalty

Black h a s m a n y c o n n o t a t i o n s , s o m e o f w h i c h b e i n g …- Authority- Power- Control- Mystery

White h a s m a n y c o n n o t a t i o n s , s o m e o f w h i c h b e i n g …- Clarity- Insight- Freedom- New start

This colour combination of green and pink doesn’t particularly work together. As they’re both quite bright colours they clash and come across as quite obnoxious.Along with the use of font, the colours are very unusual to be used in a Hip Hop/RnB magazine as they are quite polar opposite combinations to what you usually see in that type of publication. You’re much more likely to see this colour scheme in a teen pop magazine.

TURN UP THE

MUSIC!

These magazines all have a running colour scheme throughout their covers and work well together to create a house style and a sense of branding. Its also notable the fonts used are all sans serif and of different sizes. All of this adds to the how its seen to the audience and how it relates to its genre – they're all very eye catching and appealing to the target audience.

This colour combination and font doesn’t work for a motor magazine, the colours are much too bright and contrasting and the font too bubbled and dainty. It seems quite immature for such a magazine and wont appeal to the targeted audience.A motor sport magazine is much more likely to use reds and blacks or blues and greys to represent their genre rather than purple and orange or pink and white.

MOTOR SPORTS WEEKLY

These magazine covers use appropriate colour schemes for the motor sport genre.They’re use of conventions and fonts work together to appeal and attract the target audience in the correct age range. The fonts are all serif and structured in such a way it’ll immediately catch the audience’s eye when on the shelf.