Magazine Front Covers: Special Effects

From: Magforum

Designing a magazine's front cover can involve more than choosing an image and writing the cover lines. There are many special effects and different types of covers that can be used to attract buyers.

Split Covers
Many publishers have on occasion split the covers of their magazines, resulting in a half cover or more in front of the main cover. Examples here include the BBC's Good Food, The Australian Women's Weekly, and launch issues for Neon and Riva. The idea is expensive, so how and why do publishers use it - and how did Nuts get the benefit without the cost?

 

Gatefold Covers
Maxim, Time Out and Hachette's Spanish monthly Quo have all used gatefolds - some with ambitious combinations of split cover and gatefold.

Dropdown Covers
Dropdown covers are very rare because they are so wasteful of paper.

I think that some of these cover design techniques are quite effective, especially the split covers. As well as being an interesting part of magazine design, I could try to employ some of these techniques when designing the cover for my context publication.