Magazine Analysis: Front Covers

The coursework for this subject includes creating two front covers for two different magazines. In order to get a better perspective on front covers for magazines, I analysed a couple by looking at the key conventions. I chose to do three different genres and then compare them to see what makes them unique to their genre.


Music:

 

Fashion:

Entertainment:

 

All three magazines have placed their title in the biggest and boldest font at the top. This is so when placed in a magazine rack, it is still visible and easy to see. The music magazine in particular has its title at the top like the rest but unlike the rest, it is positioned on the left instead of stretching across the page.

They all also have a medium shot of a celebrity in the middle, being the dominant and only image on the front covers. However, magazines such as the one below are known to include other images on their front cover as to attract a wider audience as not everyone may like the celebrity in the centre of the magazine.




The main colour used in the fashion magazine is a dark shade of pink. Pink is common in fashion magazines as it is stereotyped as a females colour and fashion magazines are aimed at woman. The other two magazines both use red in their title; the music as a background and the entertainment as a text. Red is a common colour used on magazines especially music magazines. Apart from the red and pink, the only other colours used for the text are black and white. This is also common as they are colours that are easy on the eye, go well with any main colour and don't stand out as much as the title colour.

Each of the magazines have a title with the largest font followed by an anchorage line with an almost equally as big font. This is so you immediately look at the title first and then the anchorage line before any other text. The anchorage line tells the audience the main theme through the magazine. Such as the fashion magazines is 'MUST-HAVE FALL LOOKS'. This tells the audience that this magazine focus' on the fall fashion. The anchorage line also tells the audience who the main interview inside the magazine will be of. Such as the music magazines is 'PARAMORE' which is the band that have been interviewed inside.

The font used for the title always remains the same on every edition. The rest of the fonts may differ from the title or they may be the same. A magazine can used many different fonts on one single cover. The fashion magazine uses a different font from the title for all the sell lines. The music and entertainment magazine uses the same font for the anchorage line as the title but uses a different font for all the sell lines.  Magazines differ their fonts to avoid it looking monotonous and give some variation.

The bar code is usually positioned at the very bottom of a magazine along with the price and date. This is because the magazine wants the content to be the easiest to see and then if the audience want to buy the magazine then they can search for the price at the bottom. Although magazines are known to make an exception when they have a special offer on the price and will have it placed in a more obvious place nearer the top so that the audience see it easily and get persuaded to buy the magazine.
position of bar code and price

On the fashion magazine, there are many sell lines, filling up all the space around the main image whereas the entertainment magazine has more available space as they have positioned their sell lines either at the bottom or grouped together at the side.