How do magazine front covers use denotation and connotation to attract their intended audience?

Look magazine lures their intended audience in several ways. The magazine is called 'look' which emphasizes the 'look' and directly invites the audience to see, signifying the nature and fashion which features in the magazine which suggests 'get the look'. The title 'look' is big, bold and eye-catching; as it is coloured a bright pinky/purple.  The magazine itself is very feminine as it has colours such as pinks, whites, blues and yellows. The various amount of pink used makes the magazine look attractive and girly and appeals female readers. The thought of Look magazine is to give the impression that Look magazine is fashionable, sleek and sophisticated, perhaps maybe for a more mature audience than Heat magazine. The genre of Look is that it is a women’s magazine, mainly dedicated to fashion. The representation of Look is that it is a magazine that a young, fashionable woman would read unlike Heat which is most likely to be read more by a younger teenage audience. I would say that Look magazine is aimed at young women who are interested in celebrities and fashion. I think that the audience for Look would consist of maybe more sophisticated women than Heat magazine’s audience. This is because Heat is all celebrity gossip and the language and phrases used are less formal than Look.

The magazine selling line 'Britain's Best- Selling Fashion Weekly' links in with the title 'look' as they are highlighting the selling line to look once again, directing that this magazine interests women who are passionate with their image. However the magazine has around the same codes and conventions of most women's magazines although look is mainly about fashion and clothing instead of just celebrity gossip like Heat magazine.

The magazine also includes images that are colourful and eye-catching to appeal to a female audience and is filled with cover lines and bright colours. The photo of Cheryl Cole a famous celebrity, posing and smiling with dark bright red lipstick appears to be attracting the audience through eye-level. The photo is close up and you cannot see the background; which allows the readers to be concentrated only onto Cheryl. Women adore Cheryl's looks and her hairstyles which is why Cheryl features on 'look' magazines often.

In addition the narrative of Look magazine is similar every week and the magazine is always mainly devoted to high street fashions. The plot and structure of the magazine remains the same each week so it appeals to its target audience. The codes and conventions of Look magazine is that it gives a stylish outlook and image to the viewer of the magazine. This is combined into every issue of Look magazine to keep the codes and conventions fluent throughout the issue.

 

In conclusion, from analysing Look magazine, I have noticed how the codes and conventions can be noticed throughout the whole magazine, from the front cover and throughout to the articles featured. This is to develop a 'house style' that all the articles, covers and issues can follow so the magazine is noticeable week by week. About my analysis there is an example of the Look magazine cover.

Analysis of an Image

This image seems to address its readers through the photo used. The photo portrays a barbie doll look, were Lady GaGa known for her appearances which changes often as she loves wearing costumes and wigs to represent different people. The picture immediately grabs the reader’s attention as it takes up the majority of the page. Her flashy red bright lipstick and her bright blonde wig gives Lady Gaga an attractive and eye-catching appearance. The background is a dark purple with light pink on the edges. I believe the dark purple makes the image stand out so that the audience gets an insight of Lady Gaga before they read the wrighting, this also shows she is superior as she stands out more.  'Going Gaga' which is coloured in pink with a thin outline of purple also

refers to Lady Gaga going mad with her outrageous outfits, the 'Gaga' which is took out of her name also creates a link between her and the image as the audience can immediatly get an insight of who the women is without her full name written.

 The photograph also suggests and addresses readers that everyone's main emphasis is on Gaga as the image is outstanding and she appears to be the main focus due to her bright wig, black nail polish which matches her big black glasses and lastly her bright wig.  

Contents Page Analysis

Negus Magazine

Front cover

Here I have created a Negus magazine front cover. I have used an image of a student holding books to refer to the magazine as the magazine is based on Negus. I have also used colours such as pink and purple to make the magazine front cover look eye-catching and attractive. I have also used different font styles to make my magazine front cover look unique and striking.

To improve the Negus magazine which i have created I could include more text and make the headline font size bigger so that it stands out. I could also use more images to make the magazine look busier.

Context Page

Here I have created a context page using various amounts of colour and font. I have used an image of football and make-up so that my magazine not only is targeting at female students but it targets male students too.

I have also used various amounts of colour so that the magazine looks outstanding as this magazine is targeted at a younger audience I want my colours to be lively and not boring.

I could change the background colour to one colour as I think the page looks really colourful. It is also hard to read the text as the background is not light enough. I could also change the font size so the text is bigger and easier to read.



Analyse and compare/contrast 3 double page articles of 3 music magazines at least one of which should be of the same genre as your own magazine

I will be comparing and contrasting three different magazine front covers. I will demonstrate how the media uses font, text size, language and colour. The first magazine front cover I have been allocated to analyse is called ‘Vibe’. The masthead is placed at the top of the magazine cover in large font and coloured in yellow. Its yellow font helps it stand out against the blue background of the text. The image takes most of the space of the front cover, with the cover lines on the sides. The image even overlaps over the masthead, but it is still recognisable, and still will be noticeable from a distance.

Different types of font have been used to create affect and make the important texts stand out. Colours such as white, yellow, green, red and blue are used, which suggest that the magazine is targeted at an older audience.

Ciara is featured on the front cover of the magazine. She is a well-known singer, which may attract and influence people to buy the magazine. This magazine targets new readers as well as usual readers.  The image is in direct mode of address, where the person in the image is looking straight at the reader. The direct gaze helps simulate interaction with each individual reader. The image of Ciara is a medium shot, and takes most of the space on the front cover but there is space for text as she is standing side wards.

The language used is not formal as the text ‘Hot like Me’ questions the audience in an un-formal way.

In my opinion, I think the front cover is effective, making it look like a classy -fashion magazine, targeting a teenager, older female audience.

The second magazine I will be analysing is called ‘XXL’. In XXL editions of magazines they will always use the large, bold and thick title. This is also used in other music magazines such as ‘NME’ and ‘VIBE’ which clearly demonstrates that a large title must be more appealing to the audience. The masthead, XXL, also denotes the meaning extra, extra large, and emphasizes how the magazine is ‘massive’ as are the rappers featured in it. The text is on a large red box which helps contrast the colours and show the magazines brand and image more clearly, the colour connotations of the red box also represent power and the energy the magazine shows.

A feature added above the masthead is ‘Hip Hop On A Higher Level’, which is the magazines slogan to attract the readers to the magazine, it also imposes the image they are trying to create about how there magazine is better than its rival competitors in the same magazine genre, making it seem that they are providing more and of better quality. 

XXL will also have one or more famous artists on the front of their cover such as above the magazine features famous singers named ‘Nicki Minarj’ and ‘Drake’ from the same band named young money entertainment. XXL generally use hop-hop, and rap. This immediately shows to the reader what type of magazine it is just from its front cover, making it very clear from the front that the magazine is based on music, specifically in the Hip-Hop, and rap area. XXL always make the font image very large to make it clear to the reader what the magazine will specify in for its best and main story. 

The image used of Drake and Nicki is a medium shot were the image is directly looking at the audience.

The language of this magazine is all indirect language as it doesn’t directly speak to the audience. 

This type of magazine is not aimed at an older audience, and I feel this magazine would be aimed at the 16-27 age groups. My reason for this is because the artists usually represented on the front cover are usually more recent era, which instantly shows us that the magazine is formed around that genre of music and everybody knows what genre of music these artists perform.

With the audience I also feel that this edition is portrayed towards a male and female market as we can see this from the intimidating postures that are represented here. In my opinion the magazine looks unique and sensual.

The third magazine I will be analysing is also called ‘Gossip’.  Colours such as red, white, yellow and black have been used to create contrast between the colours and make the magazine front cover look catchy. Different sizes of font also have been applied to emphasise the important words in bigger font and the least important in small font, using different sizes of font also makes the magazine front cover look attractive.  Some fonts are either on a strip with a background colour and some are either placed on the side without a strip with a background colour.

The medium shot image takes up most of the space on the magazine front cover of three punks.  Small stamp sized images have also been used to refer to the quotes.

The language which has been used on the front cover of the ‘NME’ magazine is simple and uses text which is straight to the point. The language is not questioning the audience, but the language informs you of what’s happening or has been happening.  

In my opinion I believe the magazine is overcrowded although it is attractive and straight to the point.

Each magazine uses different fonts, colours, and language and image style to create a unique magazine front cover. However all three music magazine mastheads such as ‘Vibe’, ‘XXL’ and ‘NME’ have been placed behind the images to create a professional magazine feeling towards the audience.  This style has been used in nearly every music magazine front cover.

How does the magazine you have studied construct and reflect its intended audience?

The magazine I have studied is called ‘Plum-line’ which includes information on updates about Plumstead Manor School such as updates on what’s new in Plumstead Manor, how students are getting on with their subjects and stories on year groups. The magazine is easy to read as the language that has been used is simple. By looking at the magazine I can instantaneously identify that the magazine is published by a school as at the top of the page I can see little logos of ‘humanities’, ‘art colleges’ and ‘Applied learning’.

The heading ‘Plum-line’ is big and bold, the background is red which creates a contrast with the coloured red uniforms. Images have also been used to show readers the experience students had as information which is given links in with the images. By looking at the images I know what the information given is going to be about.

Each article has a colourful background colour which makes the magazine look eye catching this attracts magazine consumers as the magazine is noticeable.  By looking at the colourful backgrounds I know that the intended audience is students as for adults the magazine might have been more formal, not so attractive and noticeable without bright primary colours. Heading for each article are also big, bold and attention-grabbing as they are coloured in black.

Text sizes are also formatted in different fonts and sizes such as the heading would be bigger than the article. This has been used to attract readers to the title first so that they will know what they will be reading and will be interested to read the article.

Names of students who wrote the article have been placed beneath the article black and bold with a font size bigger than the article text so that it makes it clear to the reader who had wrote the article. Italic font has also been used to represent student names to make the magazine look a little fancy and realistic.

There is also an image of the school on the right hand corner of the magazine; this has been used to represent the school. Magazine consumers can also identify what the school looks like. The title also represents the school as the heading ‘Plum-line’ links in with plum- stead manor school.

In conclusion I know that the magazine is aimed at a younger audience because of images of Plumstead Manor School, simple straight to the point information and the bright colour scheme.