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Magazine Covers and Colour

Becky Goddard
Sep 30, 2016
3 min read

It is no secret that in our household we buy many monthly glossy magazines. In the September issues of Marie Claire and Elle have had 'Redesigns', last year Cosmopolitan changed in size and dropped down to just £1 in price when previously the price point was more in region of £3. Obviously it is critical for magazines to look modern and up to date to survive in a competitive market and against the instant internet. I watched the Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue documentary and saw how much each page in the magazine in scrutinised and carefully edited, I saw how the team disagreed on which cover would work best. The cover must sell the magazine, as an impulse purchase and stand out on a shelf where several magazines are all trying to shout out at the consumer.

(October Issue of Elle UK)

This got me thinking about magazines covers and which colours tend to sell a magazine best. I am sure that season comes into play here, brighter colours must work better in the summer months and warmer tones in the autumn and winter months. And background, which colour is the best in the background? Something bright that demands the attention, or plain white/neutral background that allows the person on the front and words to reach the consumer without distraction. A quick bit of research informed me that my seasonality assumptions on the whole are correct. Apparently green is one of the least used colours and red is one of the most used colours, it this simple traffic light psychology where the red stops the potential customer in their tracks and green is the implication of go, move on? Cover colour themes change each issue, so the potential customer doesn't think 'already got it lets buy something else'. Another thing, solid background colours are typically better for magazine covers and illustrated covers never sell as well as photos.

Marie Claire UK November 2016 cover

October's Elle and November's Marie Claire both have brown background covers. To me this seems quite unusual, I have seen plenty of whites, blues, and pinks covers etc but rarely brown. Brown is a popular neutral colour, but on a magazine cover does it disappear into the background? Or does it stand out because it looks simplistic and classy where other magazines seem to be very busy and loud? I do like the Elle and Marie Claire covers (and also the different font on the Marie Claire cover) but I do also like fun and creative covers. One of my favourites is Vogue's July 2005 cover, which includes a summery photo of Lily Cole sat under a tree draped in huge beads with a blue sky, green grass and water. I know I am a hoarder for keeping a magazine for over 12 years but it is one of my favourites.

(Vogue Uk July 2005 cover)

On all of the covers above, the text on the cover is mixed; they have used the bold format on key words, some captions are in capitals letters and others lower case, a few different styles of font and letter sizes are utilised too. Elle is the only cover out of the 3 that has used only one colour of text. The Vogue cover above undoubtably uses the most text and allows it to dominate far more of the over than the other covers.

In contrast to this specialist subscribers covers are typically photo dominant and don't always even include a headlines or even any words at all. Here the creative department have the opportunity to create a beautiful cover for customers who have already bought the issue in advance, so need to put those attention grabbing words and phrases. I have a few Elle Decoration favourite subscribers covers below: