Research into Film/Empire House Styles

Empire Magazine

Deconstructing Empire

Recently on Empire magazines, the layout is much less cluttered and is actually quite minimalistic, especially if the issue is a ‘special’.

The cover image is large and clear and the eye line of the model is at the camera, looking intimidating for the style of magazine and the background is quite simple but links to the film.

The masthead is large yet covered by the cover image, which does not matter as the magazine is still easily recognisable. It is in white so it matches the colour scheme of the magazine and stands out well.

The captions on the top of the magazine are small yet still readable, and the colour scheme clearly matches the rest of the magazine.

The graphic also clearly links to the film, and the font of it matches the rest of the bold, clear font on the rest of the magazine.

The cover line is a easily differentiable font to the rest of the magazine, making it stand out from the rest of the magazine. The caption underneath it links to the film and tells the audience about it a bit. Being written in white makes it stand out well against the background.

Most Empire magazines have a clear colour scheme, and are nowadays simple in design but still effective and tell the audience enough about what’s inside, as well as the main subject of the magazine.

The backgrounds of the magazines also match what the film is and are hardly ever a plain backdrop. They use graphics and a similar overall layout on all issues, with cover lines and captions at the top and bottom, with the film name being at the bottom most of the time.

Other film magazinesTotal Film magazines, unlike Empire, generally tend to have much more on the cover of the magazine, with lots more graphics, text, and even image wise, it tends to be more than one person on the front cover, rather than Empire where there’s usually one person on the front and most of the captions are to do with the main feature. Total Film also don’t keep a strict layout to all of their magazines. There is a lot of information on them and it tells you a lot about what it is in the magazine.

The masthead is large and covered by the image on the cover. This is a convention of most magazines and generally looks more effective and eye catching, as it makes the image ‘pop’.

Various graphics are used promoting other parts of the magazine, so readers havea wide variety of what to buy the magazine for apart from the main feature. They are in gold, which means they stand out more against the image as they do not match the cover image.

The cover image features two people on it, and both of their eye line match is directly at the camera. The background also shows a clear link to the film, rather than being a simple block colour.

The main coverline is in white, again making it stand out but still keeping some of the colour scheme, and matching the masthead. The choice of words of ‘On set. In depth. Up close’ make it seem like what is inside the magazine is for readers only and is exclusive, prompting people to want to read it.

The graphic at the bottom features various other stills from movies as well as small captions, which gives a wider range of what is initially seen on the magazine and will attract a larger audience.

There is yet another graphic in the bottom corner, which maximises the amount of information put on the front, again meaning for a larger audience to view the magazine.

Deconstructing Total Film