Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Chloe Whittle

Do a mood board of different music magazines…..

Place a music magazine cover here, select one which will have a similar target audience to your own

Title of Magazine

This is the music magazine Rolling Stone. It features popular music artists and trending topics. It aims its magazine at 18-25 year olds and also features a lot of sensitive topics that a lot of music magazines don’t include.

Masthead & Selling Line

When we look at the magazine we can that the masthead is blocked by the image and is set behind the image. This suggests that the magazines so popular that their target audience all ready know what the magazine’s called so therefore they don’t need to see all the masthead. The colour of the masthead is red with a silver outline. The colour right is quite bright which makes the title stand out. It grabs peoples attention as then walk past.

The style of the lettering is very fancy which shows that this magazine will be very classy. The letters all have slight flicks on them as well which are called serif’s. This also shows that this magazine will be formative and that it appeals to an older audience.

Main Image

The main image is of Miley Cyrus and from what we can see she isn't wearing anything. Miley is overly sexualized in this magazine and she’s in a very sexual position. This would defiantly attract attention from males and females due to the fact she's not wearing anything and she's Miley Cyrus. Due to Miley being the only image on the front cover suggest that she's the main feature of the magazine and the most popular that the magazine holds.

Cover Lines & Main Sells

A lot of the writing featured on the front cover is written in serif which features a small flick at the end of each letter. This suggest like ive said before that the magazine is very classy and formal which reflects the target audience. The writing of each article on the left side gets smaller each time. This suggest that the most appealing article is at the top and the least is at the bottom. The font goes from capitals to lower case letters. If we look we can see that the important words that the editors want to stand out are all in capitals and all the rest are in lower case. This suggest that the words in capitals are the words that the editors hope will attract the audience.

Do the same thing for another magazine…select one with adifferent genre to make a good

comparison.This magazine is in complete contrast to the Rolling stone magazine. This magazine is called Seventeen and from first looks this looks more like a young teenagers magazine which is suggested though the use of imagery and text.

Comparisons-First of all similar to Rolling stone this magazine only features one image of Justin Bieber. However unlike rolling stone the image used is very simple and shows Justin smiling. He is fully clothed and just simply staring at the camera. The image of Justin Bieber is also set behind the masthead which suggest that this magazine isn't as popular and well known as Rolling Stone.

-The writing used is also very big and bold grabbing the audiences attention. The colour’s pink purple and white are very natural colour's and appeal to female more than a male which suggest that their target audience is females.

- The front cover is also more busy and compacted than rolling stone. It also offers a chance of winning something which is another way in which this magazine tries to attract a buyer. The fact that the front covers very busy suggest that there's a lot of interesting and appealing stuff that the reader will enjoy. Unlike Rolling stone who rely heavily on the image they have used on the front cover Seventeen reply on the articles that the magazine feature inside.

Ideas for your own magazine

For me the Rolling Stone magazine appeals to me more due to the simplicity of it and the use of imagery. I think the use of imagery is very attractive and grabs peoples attention. I also think the front cover is very easy to read and isn't to over don’t like seventeen. The colour's are also kept simple and have a sort of class about them. They don’t try to over sell the magazine which also adds to the class of the magazine. Rolling stone also has very attractive font which is kept simple and easy to read.