Music Magazine Cover Research

 

This magazine is from a very well-known American magazine named "Vibe". The masthead of the magazine is very significant, in many different ways. They have used a sans-serif type font, which suggests to us that this magazine is aimed at a younger audience. The colour of the masthead is also fairly important. The way that the masthead fades from black to red is not a usual characteristic of a magazine, so it is very unusual. However, it links the black of his top, and his tattoos, with the other colour scheme of the magazine, red. With all of the colours on the magazine being contrasting colours, this makes the magazine easy to read, and is also a common characteristic of any magazine.

The main image, in the centre of the magazine is also very significant. The way that he is looking directly at the camera makes him draw the reader into the magazine, as it makes him look at the reader however the reader is looking at the magazine. The colour scheme for the magazine comes mainly from the image. The black of his top make the cover lines black, and they have also took the grey from his tattoos and put that onto the cover lines. This magazine does not include a barcode, which you do normally see on every magazine, but it does include an issue number, a website and a date. This could mean that the barcode is on the back cover, which is an unusual place to have one on a magazine.

This is an example of an existing magazine from "hip hop connection", which focuses on the hip hop genre of music. This magazine cover does have all the common features of a magazine, such as a barcode, date, and the issue number. The colour scheme of this magazine, similar to the previous magazine, uses red, white and black colours, which again, makes the magazine very easy to read. There are actually no proper cover lines on this magazine. Instead, they have listed other popular artists in this genre of music. This attracts the readers to buy this magazine, as these are all also famous artists from this genre of music.

The masthead at the top of the page, and in the center, behind the image, doesn't really stand out as soon as you see this magazine cover. The magazine uses a sans-serif type font, which also reflects the genre of the magazine. The thing that stands out the most as soon as you see this magazine cover is the main image in the center of the magazine. As the person on the front cover is one of the top stars for this genre of music, this encourages the readers to buy this magazine as soon as they see it. Another way to help sell this magazine is by including freebies with the magazine. In this case, the magazine includes a free £20 gift card, which persuades the buyers to buy the magazine even more.

This is another fairly popular music magazine named "XXL". The title of this magazine is a different colour to the rest of the front cover, and half of it is also covered by the main image. This is significant because it makes the title stand out, but also at the same time, it makes the main image stand out too. Above the title, there is a sell line. Sell lines aren't included on all magazines, but if they are, it gives the magazine more attractive. The subject of the main image of this magazine is wearing very dark clothing, and does not have much colour at all. I have noticed this for the majority of the magazine covers that I have analyzed, that they do not have much colour in them at all. Even though this is the case, the images on the cover of the magazines do tend to stand out.

This magazine does have all of the common characteristics of a magazine, such as the barcode, the date, and the price, which are all in the bottom right hand corner. With this magazine, as well as the previous magazine cover, it doesn't have cover lines as such, they are just names of other famous artists within this genre of music. This helps to sell, and to make the magazine stand out to the audience. Under Ludacris' name, the person on the cover of this magazine, there is something that could also be classed as a sell line, and also gives the magazine some slang. With Ludacris being from America, it acts as American slang, with the 'yo' a$$', and with the dollar signs being used as the s.

In my opinion, this magazine cover stands out the most compared to the previous magazine covers that I analysed. This is because the main image of Chris Brown actually has colour on it, as he is wearing a red top as apposed to a black top that is worn by the previous people on the magazine covers. Again, this magazine has all of the characteristics of a common magazine cover, the barcode, a website, the price and also the date.