XXL Magazine Analysis

JAY-Z on XXL

• Colours: The background has been made extremely light to bring out Jay-Z, as he is in black he stands out and is dominant along with the red, the city is washed out to bring Jay-Z out further, the colours also match his latest album The Blueprint 3.

• Design: The design is very simplistic, all it wants to do is show Jay-Z as the superior figure and topic of this issue.

• Fonts: The font is very simple, and the main cover line has been bolded out to further increase what this issue is on about and to fit the feel of this magazines surreal look, the main cover line (in red) is transparent.

• Left Third: Everything on this cover conforms to the average layout of a magazine, everything you need to know has been placed on the left hand side, everything extra has been placed on the right hand side.

• Symbolism: This issue wants to show that Jay-Z is bigger than Hip-Hop, this is why they have made him superior over New York City (Jay-Z’s hometown) it is saying that he is the king of the city, the city being the Hip-Hop Industry.

LIL WAYNE on XXL

• Colours: The main colour of this is red, matching the colour of their masthead, the colour combination I think is the easiest to pull off and always looks good, White, Red and Black always works. XXL do this a lot, they also done it on the previous Jay-Z issue and on others before.

• Design: The design of this magazine is a very different approach to a normal photo shoot, with Lil Wayne being an astronaut on the Moon.

• Font: The main cover line has been done in an inventive way, WAYNE’S WORLD has been bolded out with a very block capital font, there is also no filling to the font it is just a black outline, and in between the main title is the pulling line “I am on another level… so rappers be scared.” that draws the reader in.

• Left Third: The left third conforms to the common way we all see think of the left third, important facts are on the left and extras in the magazine are on the right hand side.

• Symbolism: In this issue Lil Wayne wants to show that he is above every other rapper in the music industry, so to show this the main image is him on the moon showing that he is higher than all the other rappers on earth, Lil Wayne frequently talks about him being higher than everyone else and is obsessed with Space.

Dips Set / Skull Gang on XXL

• Colours: The colours are again like most XXL magazines, a simple Black, White and Red theme, which is simple but always works and is becoming a trademark for XXL.

• Design: This isn’t the most outstanding main image compared to the Jay-Z and Lil Wayne issues but its still quite striking, it features Juelz Santana, Jim Jones and Freekey Zekey, members of Dips Set and Skull Gang as you can see by the skull print on Jim Jones’ scarf, they are all standing in a typical rapper style, very arrogant, because all rappers think they are the best, Jim Jones has been placed infront of the other 2 rappers Juelz and Zekey because he is assumed to be the better rapper.

• Font: The font is very plain and standard but whoever designed it used photoshop to make the ling of the writing black so that it stands out on the page, I know this because I used the same technique on my college magazine issue, but they have only used it on the main cover line and artist names because this is the most important area on the page.

• Left Third: The left third is very plain on this issue, it only shows 5 names of artists, but if it was on the shelf you would see the XXL and Juelz Santana so if you are into Rap you would pick this up because Juelz is a very good artist, this may be why they chose to put Juelz on the left rather than Zekey because Zekey isn’t well known at all.

• Symbolism: In this issue it was all about the different “Crews” in the industry, such as Dips Set/Skull Gang, Cash Money and Bad Boy, so Juelz, Jim Jones and Zekey are trying to get their name across as much as they can.