Coveranalysis[1]

Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Richard O’Connor

Bar code

Main cover line

Masthead

Cover linesMain Image

Dateline

Selling line

The target audience for this magazine includes people who are around the age of 18 – 30 interested in hip hop and rap music. This particular magazine appeals to black males the most due to the main celebrity used and the main cover line.

Target audience

Masthead & Selling Line

The logo for This magazine is extremely bright and bold. This works well for a magazine logo because when a client is looking to buy the magazine they need to be able to see and identify it quickly, the brightness and size of the logo also help catch the customers eye even if they weren't looking for it. The selling line is short and simple for a brief skim read and effective because of the alliteration techniques used to try and make the customer sub consciously be attracted to buying the magazine.

Main Image The main image of a magazine is by

far the most important factor considering how many sales that issue will make. Even for somebody that purchases that particular magazine a lot it is important they have a famous and popular celebrity on the front cover. The choice of celebrity also confirms to people who don’t normally read the magazine on the kind of content that is most likely going to be included in the magazine and its target audience. This particular magazine has a very good picture that would stand out very well, definitely catch the eye of potential buyers and the main image alone determines an exact style.

Cover Lines & Main Sells

The style and font of the cover lines are bold and rugged looking. This implies a sense of power and manliness into the stories. This would work well for appealing to males. The main cover line reads “black power” This is a very bold statement for a magazine and creates a controversial aspect to the magazine.

Masthead

Main cover line

Main image

Selling line

Competition

Free gift

The target audience for this magazine would be mainly males aged around 16 – 30 who are interested in heavy metal music.

Target audience

Masthead and selling line

The masthead on this magazine is blended into the main image, usually this wouldn’t work too well because the masthead needs to stand out, however on this magazine cover the main image stands out enough on its own and the masthead fits the style of the cover better. The masthead is a strong style and would catch the eye of any customer looking for a magazine to do with metal music. The selling line again is short and sweet, this reading “defenders of the faith” appeals greatly to their target audience and people who are passionate about music.

Main image

The main image of this magazine is an extremely impressive and noticeable one. The image instantly reads the genre of music and type of stories that will be in the magazine to anybody who hasn’t seen it before. Another important factor of the image is that it will play well with the fans of the magazine because it is a bold cover choice and their target audience are those who like their music different to everybody else.

Cover Lines & Main Sells

The cover lines of this magazine are in bold text designed to look like they are written in blood. These two factors work well because it is not only easy for a customer to read but it appeals to them before they even read it.

Comparisons

Overall The two magazine covers, despite looking completely different are extraordinarily similar in an attempt to achieve the same goals.

The Metal Hammer cover was an interesting design because of how plain it was and because they used the main image as the whole of the background, however the XXL magazine was effective because it managed to include a lot of information in a way that would still catch a shoppers eye and not bore them too much to read.

I Personally prefer the XXL cover because I think it looked smoother and more professional whilst giving a little more information about what kind of content to expect without having to look at the inside.

Ideas for your own magazine

For my own magazine I would definitely consider using a striking main image in the way that the Metal Hammer cover did however I would choose more of a smart, plain title to compliment this.

I would choose to put in more cover lines as the XXL cover did along with competitions however I wouldn’t put too many on because I appreciate the style of having a simple, plain but effective cover.