Research On The Visual Effect Of Cover Design For Contemporary Chinese Music Journals

Journals of contemporary Chinese music are among the most important media for thedissemination of popular music culture. With multivariate forms and a wide audience, they play a keyrole in spreading music culture, facilitating academic exchanges and providing guidance for musicpractice.Graphic design, characterized by its intuitive visual expression, has become a showcase for thecomprehensive strength and overall competitiveness for music journals. Though music editors are notdirectly involved in graphic design, they, as gatekeepers, have invariably provided invaluableguidance for graphic design in such important respects as choosing subjects or general planning. Toaccentuate a journal’s unique characteristics and improve its quality, its editors need to enhance theirsense of innovation in graphic design. Such are issues that music editors must pay attention to.In the present research, an overview of three types of semiotic systems in music journals,namely, characters, music notations and pictures is made. Symbols in these three semiotic systems areanalyzed from the perspectives of semiotics, communication studies and editing. The function ofsymbols in music activities for music editing is explained and the contemporary journals for Chinesemusic are classified. In the light of graphic design principles, the characteristics for the graphic designof academic music journals, professional music journals and entertainment music journals areillustrated. Concrete examples are provided to expound the unique features of graphic design formusic journals and the influence which audience information choice and reading psychology exert ongraphic design.The importance and necessity for a music editor in editorial activities to endorseGraphic Design Musicalization are emphasized.Analysis of specific examples from music journals reveals that it is imperative for music editorsto have a thorough consideration of their audience and entrench themselves in the market by means ofdistinct character and develop a comprehensive awareness for music journals in process of visualexpression design. The optimum effect for information dissemination is achieved by focusing on themeaning expression of characters, music notations and pictures and giving full play to the initiative of symbols manipulated by editorial means. Through visual beauty effect of music journal’s semioticsystems, brands of music journals with unique features can be effectively established.