Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Dan Watt

Do a mood board of different music magazines…..As part of this unit I looked into popular music magazines such as Vibe, Rolling Stones, XXL and The source to find out why their covers appeal to readers. They all feature a large image in the center of the cover and have bold text with bright, vibrant colours. The text has been made easy to read intentionally, so it might catch peoples attention.

The selling line for this magazine is “50 greatest hip-hop songs of all time. The mast head is partially covered by the main imagine of rapper 2pac. The main imagine has also been given a black and white effect to possibly show the artist is deceased.

This is a front cover for the popular magazine rolling stones. It features the logo font in red at the top of the image, it also has a sub title “ The best albums and songs of 2012”.

Title of Magazine

The selling line would grab attention of hip hop fans, as would the picture of 2Pac. The logo is consistent on all rolling stone covers making it instantly recognizable. The lettering on this cover is in a large, bold white font to make it stand out from the dark, grey and black background image.

Masthead & Selling Line

Main Image

The main image is of the deceased world famous rapper 2pac. I believe the black and white effect is to symbolize his death. This image would immediately draw hip-hop fans attention towards the magazine.

Cover Lines & Main Sells

The main cover line is “ The best albums and songs of 2012”, With sub titles such as “Will Obama try to kill pot?”. The image is the largest size possible with it taking up the whole background of the cover. However the text is placed at the side of the cover so you can see the background clearly. The language used in this cover is standard English with little if any slang words. The cover lines are in the colour white with the only coloured text being the Logo which is red. The main title line is also in bold to catchThe readers attention.

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

comparison.This is another music magazine called Vibe. On this cover is Rihanna a famous pop and R&B singer. This covers background is a black and white image of Rihanna similar to the rolling stones cover, however the rest of the background is in a light blue colour. There Is barely any text on this cover with the main headline being “ What's love got to do with it”.

The text is also in a smaller font compared to the rolling stones cover and it is coloured black which makes the text more bold.

Comparisons

Both the main images are very similar, with them having a black and white effect. This makes the text stand out more on the VIBE magazine however as it contrasts with the light blue background. I would say the text is also similar, both fonts are bold and in a large size so to catch peoples attention towards the magazines. The main difference between the text is the composition, with the magazines having their text on the opposite sides, VIBE on the right mostly and Rolling stones on the left.

Ideas for your own magazine

I thinking about have one main image for my magazine, possible with an effect such as black and white. I would use bold but decorative text to catch peoples attention, be visually attractive and also to make my magazine easier to read. I think I will put my text on the right hand side of my magazine as it will make the image clearer to see and because I think it looks professional, I will also only use proper English in the title and other text.