Magazine Front Cover Analysis‘Vibe’

Masthead

This magazine’s masthead takes up around one third of the front cover. This demonstrates an obvious importance of the magazine’s title and makes the masthead the most visible part of the front cover. The white colour and sans serif type face are typically ‘low key’ and aren’t bursting with colour. Despite this, the masthead is still incredibly visible on the page and stands out above everything else. This is achieved through a high brightness and large text. This magazine is in the genre of ‘hip hop’, and so the masthead conforms with the dark and ‘mysterious’ generalisation of the genre. Although, the masthead is still very bright and could also be related to other genres if the genre wasn’t already known. This is because they want the magazine to relate to a wider audience than just dedicated hip hop fans, and so the visual dominance of the masthead on this front cover still conforms with the genre of hip hop but also relates to anyone on the magazine aisle. Magazines of which are *too* genre specific often have much more minute sociographics, this is clearly not what ‘Vibe’ wants.

Masthead Overlay

The masthead overlay used on this front cover does not have as much of an effect as it could do. The dominant cover image, in this case – a photo of popular artist Drake, overlaps most of the ‘I’ in the masthead by still fails to be the first part of the cover to attract attention. The contrast of the colour scheme of the photo and the background colour of the front cover is quite minute and the photo merges well with the rest of the page. On the other hand, the masthead completely contrasts the background colour of the front cover. This is quite a big statement by the magazine, as they are putting more emphasis on the masthead than on a photo of currently one of the world’s most popular artists. To follow the general iconography of a music magazine (and of magazines in general) by using a masthead overlay, but their use of brightness and colouring leads to a suggested dominance of the magazine’s own title over the reputation of the model used in the dominant cover image – Drake.

Dominant Cover Image

The dominant cover image used on the front of this edition of ‘Vibe’ magazine strongly conforms with the idea that artists are seen as objects rather than people. In this case, the dominant cover image is a studio taken photo of ‘Drake’. His costume is clearly planned out and manipulated by the magazine to fit their design as the colour perfectly blends with the magazine’s colour scheme and the word on his shirt – ‘UNSTOPPABLE’, is precisely framed to fit the centre of the page. This text on his shirt is almost used as the lead cover line, and is actually the section of the page of which stands out most after the masthead. The model’s (Drake’s) pose and direct gaze denote dominance and is typical of the genre of hip hop as it gives the idea of self confidence and arrogance, which is how most hip hop artists are portrayed. The hat balancing on the top of his head is also typical of the genre as it is a fashion style often related to a rough area or background, much like how hip hop artists often portray themselves. This photo is clearly planned out and clearly had an aim to portray Drake in a certain and specific light. The photo lacks realism and there is a high chance that how Drake is represented in this photo is all for the camera. It reflects the artist, molded by the media, but does not reflect Drake as a person.

Sky Line

A sky line is used to list hip hop artists, but gives no information at all over whether the artists have any relevance in the magazine. It surely means that the artists will have some sort of appearance in the magazine’s articles, but there is a high possibility that the real reason for this skyline is to attract more readers. They have listed various popular hip hop artists of whom will have a large audience, but are featured in many magazines. They have also listed a few less popular artists of whom probably have a lesser amount of magazine appearances. By listing these artists in the skyline of this front cover, they are reaching out to the fans of these artists, and if they find them, it will be more of a novelty for them to see these less well known artists in a magazine.

Cover Lines

The lead cover line of this front cover actually blends in to all of the other secondary coverlines. The only things making it the lead cover line is the fact that it relates to the dominant cover image and its slightly larger type face. The lead cover line is a pull quote from the article, and is only briefly outlined to leave a desire to read on. This is a very basic method to gain readers, but is also a very successful method. Altogether, the amount of cover lines on this front cover is quite minute. Apart from the lead cover line, there are only two other cover lines of which are not also flashes. By being this brief, it gives the idea that the audience of the magazine is more enticed by visual aspects of the front cover rather than the writing itself. If they were to create a white front cover, with blue text and only one small image to the side, surrounded by text then the audience of the magazine would not be hip hop. To be successful, the magazine needs to be specific to its audience (mainly teenagers, predominantly black).

Flashes

There are three flashes on this front cover, each holding its own piece of information. These flashes do not actually hold any information of which really have any grave significance, but they are basically just some more visual coverlines. The writing in the flashes could easily be written as a basic cover line, but the visual design, as I mentioned in the previous slide, appeals more to the target audience. By adding a few flashes like this to the magazine’s front cover, it means that there can be a complete lack of secondary images, but the page will still be visually dominant. After the masthead and the dominant cover image (more specifically the “UNSTOPPABLE” on the shirt, these flashes are the aspect of the front cover of which the eye is drawn to. This is appropriate for a young audience as they will be drawn in first by the appearance, not by the content.

House style

- Colour palette often related to dark, hip hop music, black, white and yellow indicate the genre of magazine.

- Dominant cover image planned out and edited to create desired characteristics.

- Sans serif type face, text only in white and yellow to contrast black background.

- Iconography -> Barcode, text down both sides of page, flashes, lack of secondary images.

- Text only in yellow and white.