Anatomy of a New Cover Design
Click on above cover picture for bigger image
What’s in a cover? Actually, there is a lot. When you are trying to sell a product, you have just a few seconds to get the person’s attention and make the sale. Not an easy task. In order to stay in the game, you need to evolve and improve. Hunting Illustrated is now heading into its fifth year. Something we are very proud of. Over this time we have tried to keep things new and fresh and continue to showcase the great design and quality of our products. Hunting Illustated has changed and evolved over the years, but our new issue (March/April 2006) goes a little beyond a few font changes and colors. We wanted to apply the things we have learned and continue to push the envelope on being fresh, but also wanted to do some changes that would get Hunting Illustrated more noticed.
Hunting Illustrated is distributed nationwide by the largest newsstand distributor in the country. We recently picked up about 300 Safeways and have more in the works. The reason for this is the quality that people are seeing over and over again in our magazine. So what makes a good cover? That is a very good question. I would like to think we have had some good covers over the years. We all kind of have our favorite, but is there something we could do to help convert sales with an updated cover design because of the exposure we are getting? What is on the cover definitely effects sales one way or the other. That first impression is everything. Branding is also a key factor, and making sure your customers are able to find you as easy as possible. So why did we make the changes that we did? Let me break it down.
We first started with our logo. We wanted Hunting Illustrated to be more simple by choosing a cleaner font than before. We also changed the colors and went with something very bold. In the past we have mixed the colors up depending on the cover. We are now going to stick with the orange and white. An important part of this logo is the black background. King’s Outdoor World has always been known for its rich colors and design. The new logo style, along with the black border gives it separation from everything else on the cover so no matter what, the logo will stand out and get noticed. We also made the logo smaller and more compact on the cover. By doing this we leave more room for the main cover photo and freeing up valuable real estate.
The top banner area is a very crucial part in the cover design. On the newsstand, you don’t have the luxury of having the full cover in view. In most cases, the top three inches is all that is in view. You have about 3-5 seconds to get the attention of the customer as he/she scans for interesting titles. Therefore, we have provided enough information in this part of the cover for potential buyers to see what the title is and enough basic information to determine if there is an interest enough to pick it up. We feel once the customer has picked up the magazine, the cover has done its job. The content within the magazine now has to continue with the sale.
In some cases, you don’t even get the benefit of a full top banner view when stacked against other magazines on the rack. The above example shows what many customers have to look at when scanning for their favorite magazine. We therefore have included valuable logos, in particuar the King’s Outdoor World logo. It’s also the reason we do not have Hunting Illustrated going all the way across the cover. By condensing the logo, but keeping it very bold, the potential buyer has enough to go on even in this limited view.
Last, but not least, we have the body of the cover. This is where people love to see that beautiful photo of a huge buck or bull. By isolating our logo and top banner and actually making it smaller, we give more room for our main cover photo and additional text. In some cases, the full cover is exposed to the potential buyer, and this is where the cover really shines. The result is a cleaner, more powerful cover design that demands attention and continues with good branding capability. All we can do now is wait and see if all of this hard work pays off. Any thoughts and comments are appreciated.
But do me a favor, can you just forget about all that and just click here to subscribe to the magazine so you don’t have to worry about finding it on the newsstand? Six big issues a year full of great articles, features, news and much more (800-447-6897).
1 comment April 26th, 2006
