FIVE MAGAZINE COVERS
I have chosen to talk about this magazine first. This magazine cover is very effective because for one it is very eye catching the image is very clear and ‘VOGUE’ magazine usually have a very glossy finish on the front cover to make it look even better, the image stands out incredibly well along with the blood red masthead as well the masthead being in capitals and quite bold lettering. The gaze of the image is extremely direct which some people could find comforting but then again some people would possibly find this interrogating so the directness of the image could be good as well as a negative factor it just depends on the audience. It fits its genre of audience because the appearance of the image is very formal and classy.
The second magazine I have chosen is also quite popular. ‘Q’ is a very successful music magazine and probably a lot of its success is down to its eye catching front cover. Because of ‘Q’ magazine being popular the magazine has confidently been able to get away with overlapping the image in front of the masthead logo and people are still going to know that this is ‘Q’ magazine. The images are incredibly clear on purpose the main reason being that it makes the magazine more aesthetically appealing to the reader. The image of well the well known band ‘Arctic Monkeys’ is the main focus of the magazine therefore that is why the main and largest image on the page is a photograph of Alex Turner who is the lead singer of the band. The gaze of the image is very direct. The left hand third of the magazine is very formal in telling you some of the main and keen features in the magazine. The text is all in capitals so this gives off in my opinion a bigger and bolder impression. The colour scheme of the magazine is always the same and the blood red and fresh white just go extremely well together and creates the signature look of the magazine. The pug also carries some more important information.In my opinion this is one of the best ways to present a magazine cover.
My third image is of gossip magazine ‘heat’. This magazine is notoriously known for having the celebrity who is the main highlight of the magazine and who is often the main image on the cover, to always have their first name blown up in huge capitals which become incredibly eye catching its also appealing to the reader because it easily becomes clear who the main article in the magazine is about. ‘heat’ magazine always makes sure that its cover is jam packet with information about the whole of the magazine and the most important quotes from articles. The magazine has a right hand third. There is also a text box on the left of the cover, which contains some text, which is a quote, and some even smaller writing. The text box also contains some smaller images and the barcode. The image is very bold and appealing to the eye, the gaze is quite direct and in my opinion a little seductive. The pug contains a well-known logo of ‘BIG BROTHER’ a reality TV show. I do not like this magazine cover that much because it look messy and quite cluttered.
My next magazine is called ‘geek’. geek is a gaming, TV, technology,collectables and movie magazine all under the genre of geek. The audience is normally people between the age of 16-25; The main image on the page is comedic actor ‘Seth Rogen’ who has been in numerous comedy films over the past years the image is promoting is new film ‘knocked up’ with is hands in a ladies lady parts . The gaze of the image is very direct and is also supposed to be quite comedic. the masthead of the magazine cover is very bold and its clear so that most buyers would probably be able to spot the magazine cover from a mile of which is quite a good thing its also eye catching so this could help to promote the magazine. The cover very clearly has a barcode and price tag in the bottom left hand corner. there might not be no pug but the magazine cover still looks good and professional and not like it seems to of lost anything or be missing something important.Font colour and size is extremely important on a successful magazine cover for example if the main story of the magazine was in tiny lettering then people wouldn’t realize that it was the main story. Geek magazine has done the correct ting because straight away our eyes are drawn to look at the bold second largest text on the page and we can clearly see that this is the main story. In my opinion the rest of the text is the right colour and size to reach the appropriate rank of importance on the cover.
My fifth and final magazine is the very popular ‘TIME magazine’. This magazine has been around for a very long time and capturing some important people over time such as Al Capone and Adolf Hitler. Because this is a special edition to the magazine it explains why the cover seems to be quite dull, however in my opinion I think that this makes the magazine unique and classy looking it almost has a vintage feel to it. The masthead is still the same but the that is the only thing that would make the reader recognize the magazine. The image is of the so called ‘king of pop’ Michael Jackson pulling what to me looks probably like a signature move. The gaze of the image is not direct in the slightest because his eyes are either closed or they are looking straight down at the floor. There is not a lot more to discuss about this magazine because it does not contain any more features such as a pug, barcode,price or even a left hand or right hand quarter.
FIVE CONTENTS PAGES
This contents page is from the very stylish ‘VOGUE’ fashion magazine this is also the same magazine that I used for my first magazine on the contents page analysis. This magazine is very successful and in order for the magazine to be good it has to look professional and stylish especially with it being a fashion magazine. The masthead is very important for a reader because not only is it the name of the magazine in a way you could say that the masthead is the magazines identity, because the contents page has big bold capitalised lettering it stands out a lot, however the creators and designers of the magazine must of thought, we don’t want to take any of the power away from the contents page BUT we do still need the name of the magazine so they decided to put the lettering of the masthead in normal, non-capitalised lettering. This was a good move because the magazine does still have power and it still looks great and eye catching especially with it being the largest writing on the page. The next thing in size is the image, the image, even with it being a bit strange it still fits the magazine perfectly in my opinion. The image is of a model in a scuba diving kit supposedly under water, the model is undoubtedly still managing to look complex and glamorous despite her surroundings and context of the shoot. This would attract the target market well because they would be interested and in a way look up to glamorous models. The contents page also contains a selling line, this is informative to the reader because it gives the information of the month the issue has been release and that this page is definitely a contents page. Text on the contents page needs to be just the right size to skim through, ‘VOGUE’ has made this very easy because the magazine is clearly split up into individual categories and the page numbers are also clearly represented next to a short burst of interesting information that will make the reader want to read on.
My next magazine contents page that I am going to analyse is from the music magazine Q. the layout of this contents page could help me in the future as part of our coursework task is to create a music magazines contents page, I could use parts of this contents page in my own improved version. We can clearly see on the page that there is a good and bold use of 3 main colours: black, white and red this creates in my opinion a very professional and bold look which is just what the magazine needs and the readers will love. The image in the right of the page is the largest thing on the page and naturally the readers will look straight at the image as soon as they turn the contents page because of how appealing it is to the eye. The image is clearly of one of the main stories in this particular magazine the band that feature in this image are a popular band called ‘THE COURTEENERS’ this band is a personal favourite of my own so this image would appeal a great deal to me the use of a wide shot image allows it to in a way set the true atmosphere and presence of the band. The use of the text box at the bottom left of the image is also good because it’s a good use of space and its positioned perfectly on pretty much the least important part of the image (the grass). There is a strip across the top of the page that contains quite a bit of necessary information that a reader might find useful, it contains the name and logo of the magazine, it has the bold lettering saying clearly how it is the contents page and finally the strip also has the month that the magazine was issued, the issue number and more information that could be useful for example the magazines website address.
‘heat’ is my third magazine that I chose to evaluate, in my opinion a bad thing about this page is that the name of the magazine isn’t particularly that clear compared to some of the other magazines I have seen. However it might still work well for the magazine. In the top left there is the front cover of the magazine and underneath the text is sorted into clear sections of the different categories and in each category the use of the red (which is the signature colour of the magazine) has been used to make the main event of each story bold and captivating, the other main colour that is used through out the magazine contents page or a sort of yellowy orange this has most likely been used to outline the factor that the main image is mostly containing reds and yellows the main image is of one of the stories that features a bit on the front cover of the magazine so its easily shown as one of the most appealing to the audience, also because it has an element of comedy in the image it would also be another result that becomes and makes the image more appealing to the audience, there is a lot more visual things e.g. images in this magazine that what might be in other magazines. There is a small text box at the bottom right hand of the page saying, follow us this contains the web addresses for the magazines facebook and twitter page. The box also contains the logos of both facebook and twitter, which is another visual thing to add to the magazines contents page.
Fourthly I have chosen a contents page from the amazing film and movies magazine ‘EMPIRE’, this magazine is extremely popular amongst film lovers and moviegoers. The strip along the top very clearly exclaims that this is ‘EMPIRE’ magazine as it is the only text on the strip. The image in the same way as most magazine covers is extremely clear and eye catching the image is so clear that we can see all the details on ‘Thorins’ costume, in particularly small writing to the left of the image is a small fact about the sword that he is holding I like this because it makes the reader more interested in the image. Because this issue of ‘EMPIRE’ is a special on the new hit film ‘THE HOBBIT’ it makes perfect sense for the main image to be of one of the characters. Another thing that makes perfect sense is that all of the captions for each page number is something to do with the film. The masthead of the magazine contents is very effective by having not one but two big, bright and bold colours is definitely a good thing because of how it helps to portray the whole page. There is a pug on the top right of the page that contains information on exactly how many pages of ‘middle-earthed magic’ which would be appealing to the reader because for one they wouldn’t be reading a special on the hobbit if they didn’t really like the magazine and for those people in the target market who haven’t yet gone to go and see it yet can still manage to get an exciting insight to the new movie.
Finally my last contents page is of the fashion magazine ‘ELLE’ this has to be one of my favourite contents pages layouts, I like it because as soon as you turn to this page you are bombarded with powerfully eye appealing imaging and informative information about what the magazine contains. The masthead of the page is of the name of the magazine and the magazine has but there own twist of a normal average ‘contents’ page and called it a ‘TABLE OF CONTENTS’ this to me is much more appealing than the average name of a contents page in other magazine. The whole of the contents page doesn’t really have a main image as such but there is a powerful black and white image behind the magazine masthead/logo and lots of other images on the page for the reader to look at and reflect on. The whole of the page is split up into little text boxes, I think this makes the text easier to read, as it is broke up in to bite sized chunks. The font in the text is very sophisticated for each of the main sub titles in each text box and then there is quite a lot of writing underneath this is good because its more detailed than other magazines.
Eleanor Birtles Media Blog 