Basic elements and concepts of prepress design for journal cover

First, the cover design elements

Although some secondary journals nowadays have added secondary plastic wrappers to show gentrification, their main effect is through the cover. The cover design is still the hardware of the periodical image.

A successful cover design must have the following elements:

1, highlight the logo, title, readers to facilitate identification, to strengthen readers of the magazine's unique artistic symbols of memory, lay a good foundation for brand building.

2. Must meet the contents of this issue and have a guiding role. The choice of pictures, fonts, font sizes, and the use of colors must be coordinated with the content of this issue.

3. Embody its own style, reflect the overall unity in continuity and change. Without considering matureness, lack of adequate market research or no major changes in the positioning of the publications, it is best not to change the style of the cover design so much that the publication will appear in front of the reader with completely unfamiliar faces, which will greatly affect the publications. The issuance.

4. Overall coordination, unity, eye-catching, and atmosphere. The logo, title, period number, bar code, and other elements compose a perfect picture with the main picture, with clear visual focus and sense of hierarchy. Strong. Should not be too complicated and fancy.

Second, the four important concepts of cover design

1. Clear positioning

The creation of a periodical must first consider the positioning problem and the positioning of the market in order to win the market. However, the positioning we usually refer to often refers to content positioning, price positioning, and target reader positioning, while neglecting the positioning of the cover. It is true that the cover is for content and it must fit tightly with the content. However, the cover itself should also have a clear positioning. The content of the publication and its cover orientation, both of which go hand in hand, have injected a powerful force into the market.

2. Unique aesthetic value

The cover is by no means a simple combination of pictures and titles. Most young journals, women's periodicals, and marriage, education, health, and fashion journals use the female model and the female star as the main cover. "Family" once used a part of readers' advice to change the cover from a single beauty to two men and women or "family photos". As a result, the sales volume dropped significantly and it was necessary to restore the original cover style. However, it is clear that the reader did not purchase the magazine for the beauty photographer alone. If readers only appreciate beautiful women, it's better to buy large-scale calendars, painting pages, and human photobooks. The reader likes the beauty picture on the cover of the journal, because it is already a piece of art that has been infused with design awareness, has loaded new cultural connotations, and gives people new visual pleasure and beautiful enjoyment. Therefore, it is not appropriate to veto the cover picture. However, some domestic journals do not have a high level of cover design, and there is a lack of design for the characters they publish, and there are even low-grade and vulgarized tendencies. This is the main reason for the resentment of readers.

3. Embodies advanced cultural features

(1) Have a clear orientation

Journals are special cultural products that affect people’s ideological realms. Their cover also has the effect of spreading advanced culture and attracting people.

The writer's ideological and aesthetic tastes are often reflected in the cover design. They have a positive guiding responsibility for the public aesthetics. The cover design must have a rich cultural connotation, embody a noble aesthetic taste, and pursue profound thinking and human depth. The organic unity of ideology, artistry, and appreciation is achieved, and the audience is given a sense of beauty and passion, strength, and belief. It has become a field that cultivates the reader's spiritual sentiment and improves the reader's aesthetic level and cultural taste. This is also the value and significance of journal culture.

(2) Meet audience's aesthetic psychology

It is almost impossible to mention the design of the cover of the periodical in an attempt to cater to the cover of all readers. Moreover, there are a wide range of journals, each of which has a specific readership. The phenomenon of “all people read literary periodicals” in the 1980s is over. Today, the traditional pattern of the periodical market has been broken. With the market segmentation, the target readership of periodicals has become increasingly clear. Whether it can be said that the cover design of the future journals should be considered in line with the “minority” aesthetic psychology. The design of the periodical cover must be tailored to their specific readership, and carefully designed to meet their aesthetic taste appreciation habits before they can be accepted by them. Market share.

4. Consider brand strategy

From a marketing perspective. The design of the cover of the periodical must achieve the “AIDA” goal. A is the attention, which is the first to attract consumers' attention. IBO-interest (interest) is to arouse readers' interest. D is Desire, which inspires readers' desire to buy. A8pAction (action) is to promote potential consumer behavior. From this perspective, designing a journal cover must consider the following two elements.

(1) To facilitate identification

To highlight the dominant position of logos and titles, the use of graphics, colors, fonts, and font sizes must be subordinate to the logos, titles, and logos, titles, issues, etc., must not be in conflict with each other, and should be harmonized and unified to highlight the image's individuation and identifiable. Features, strengthen the accumulation of audience perception image, and ensure the unification and continuation of brand image.

(2) Consider the market terminal effect

In the cover design of the journal, from the simple graphic design effect, some of the covers seem to be successful and have a higher artistic level. However, if the cover of some journals is placed on the market, this effect is not obvious. Why is it that the designer did not consider the market terminal effect. Traditional journal titles are located on the top, bottom, left, and right sides of the journal's cover, while modern journal titles are mostly on the top of the journal. This is determined by the terminal's display style, because regardless of whether it is suspended or swing-type, the general bookstores, newspaper and retail booths display multiple copies of the publication, only exposing the top of the journal. Because you can't guarantee that the distributor will always put your publications on the first floor, if the titles are designed in other locations, it will not be easily touched by the readers or even be seen at all.

Therefore, the cover designers of the current periodicals must have a strong sense of market when designing the cover. They must consider the artistic position of the cover, and must follow the laws of the market to consider the market's terminal effect.

Three conclusions

With the prosperity of the periodical industry, the overall appearance of the cover design of Chinese periodicals has changed a lot at this stage, and the level has been greatly improved. In particular, the cover of some journals, enterprises, fashion and animation periodicals has completely out of the tradition. The layout of the journal's cover is novel in design and full of strong colors of the times. It should not be overlooked that the overall level of binding of China's periodical industry is not high, and there is a big gap compared with the international advanced level. Emerging technology has injected vitality into the design of the cover. The use of network resources, digital technologies, and the improvement of printing technology have all extended and enriched the performance of the cover design. This has allowed the cover design to have a wider space for employment. The periodical beauty editors should speed up knowledge, study, and update so that the cover design of periodicals in China will enter the fast track of speeding up, and be in line with the international advanced level, inject vitality into the global market for the journal industry to enter the world.