Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Becky Doyle

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VOGUEVogue is very a well-respected magazine in the fashion industry, not just in America and Britain but all over the world. To be in fact it’s available in nineteen countries. There unique fashion illustrations come to life in photography shoots, using gorgeous models and celebrities to express what they can offer as a high-end magazine, and in a way that is elegant and uses different era’s of fashion to illustrate this in elegant ways.. Their target audience is females in the age range of twenties to thirties. The magazine as whole is based on fashion and this is what appeals to the female audience and attracts them to want to buy it and read it. It has been said that some of the women that read vogue, aren't their usual buyers and are purely reading it for aspiration and distraction from their life. Although the main Vogue magazine is aimed for women, they have further developed magazines for the other sex and other demographic age groups such as, Men Vogue, Teen Vogue and Vogue Living. They have aimed to cater for other audiences which at the same time increases their revenue as a company. In the past 6 months, Vogue have sold approximately 360,400 copies in the UK. Vogue has the ability to reflect political issues through fashion and editorial articles.

The famous VOGUE masthead is used on every single cover of the magazine. It is the first thing you look at when going to buy a magazine as a consumer, and captures the eye with it’s bold and fine font qualities. It’s a font that I am drawn to when I’m looking at it and you know that it’s vogue. To interpret this in your own way, you would use fonts such as Edition or Didot, and these are downloadable from the internet. Although Vogue doesn’t have a selling line on this particular magazine, I think the title itself sells it. Because it stands out and looks elegant because of the font that is used. The great thing about the masthead as well is that they will correspond the colour of the ‘Vogue’ text to what is going on in the main image. This works really well and is widely used on the covers of Vogue. As famous as they are, they know how to draw a customer in just from the name of the magazine. The fact that it fills the whole of the top of the magazine as well, really works well and adds to the elegant placement of the name.

MAIN IMAGEAs well as the Vogue title, the other main thing that you will notice is the image on the front. This image is usually a celebrity on a photo-shoot that Vogue would have done beforehand. The quality of the image is very high and the makeover that the celebrities receive is immaculate and flawless. In this case, the woman on the cover is Keira Knightley. She is a very successful actress known for films such as The pirates of the Caribbean and Pride and Prejudice. Using someone as recognized as her can really attract mainly women and young girls, to want to buy the magazine and read the article. She is iconic in the way that she is a tall, slim woman and can easily pull of photo-shoots and be styled in different ways. The image usually relates to an article about the star and will have a caption for it underneath.

Cover lines are the stories and articles which feature in the magazine, and are spread out around the edges, mainly on the left and right side. They are mostly written in a bold format and the font is big and they use similar ones on all the cover lines. In my opinion I think that the ones that have a bolder font are the ones they want to stand out to the audience, and what will attract women to want to read the articles. The won’t every single story on the front, only the ones that they think are the most important or popular with the audience. As well as the cover lines, there is the main sell. The main sell is the caption which links to the main image. In this case it says Keira Knightley’s Starlet Style. From this we know the main article is based on the celebrity and the writing is big so we can notice it more. It is like this on mostly every magazine cover. As well as illustrating what is going to be wrote about in the magazine, they are there for decorative purposes too. The language used on cover lines is specific so the reader will want to open the magazine and read on. These particular cover lines on Vogue relate to women strongly, such as beach bling, starlet style and shopping diaries. These are what attract the female market to magazines like these.

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GLAMOURGlamour magazine was founded in 1939 in the United States, and is a woman's magazine based around fashion, celebrities, and lifestyles. The cover is similar to vogue in the way that you have the masthead placed at the top of the page, and the cover lines surround the main image a celebrity. This magazine however is less elegant than vogue is, as vogue is seen as a higher-class type of audience. I think the audience for glamour is young women aged 18-30 because they offer what women that age would be interested in. As well as the cover lines, the things I notice that would attract an audience are the use of bright colours and the striking bold fonts. Throughout the issues of Glamour, they use bright colours on the masthead, because it is the first thing you instantly see as well as the main image. These are the things that will draw you in and make you want to read further about the celebrity on the front. This number 1 selling magazine comes at a cheap price of £2 so not only is it attractive to look at, it’s very affordable and sticking this in a bright yellow circle over the masthead adds to the overall look of glamour magazine.

The Glamour masthead used on every single cover is always in a bright or dark block colour. The type stands out strongly because it is so bold and eye catching, and it is the first thing you see when you look at the cover. With the magazine being a celebrity orientated, this and glamour combine, to create this whole other fashion world where women and young girls all over Britain gather inspiration to look good. From looking at the title, we instantly know that it is going to be all things ‘glamour’. I think the way that they overlap the main image over the middle of the masthead works well and it is like this on most of their covers.

MAIN IMAGEOn this cover of company they use Beyoncé as the main image focus. She is a very successful woman in the music industry and is widely noticed for her qualities and fashion sense and style. Young girls and women look up to her as a role model and like to take fashion tips from her to influence how they look. It stands out well on the cover because she has a certain glowing look about her, and she’s happy. She also stands out from behind all the bright coloured cover lines. We can instantly see that Beyoncé is the main cover line and there will be a full double page spread on what her story is. What Beyoncé is wearing and the colours used reflects the season in which they are publishing, and this was a June issue so they would have been coming up to summer.

Like all magazines, the cover lines are spread out all around the edges of the page. They all use some sort of bold font and some are in capitals. This is to make that particular cover line stand out without being too obvious, because it all blends in together. The first image below we can see the main cover line and that it references to Beyoncé and how she is going to be opening up about her life. It has her name printed in a bright yellow font and catches the readers eye., and it will be the first thing you see or want to read because of her image on the front cover. The other stories are just little ones that help fill the magazine with stuff to read that relates to women and their lifestyles. Company know their target audience extremely well so they can specifically word cover lines to target different types of women. For example, the high street hits cover lines, would targets young women and students, because at this point in their life they are on a budget and they want to find the latest fashion but as affordable pric3es. They are very relatable stories and influence a lot of people to want to buy their magazine.

COMPARISONSThere are some major differences between Company and Vogue, as Vogue is very reserved and high-end, whereas Company is much more laid-back and current to todays demographic of women. Although the layout is very similar in the way their stories are set out, Company aren't afraid to let go on what content they involve in the cover stories. Words such as sex positions suggest that their magazine is being aimed at middle class people, and that’s what the women of Britain are interested in. Whereas Vogue is more respectful in the way that they keep themselves restricted because they want to keep the reputation of the magazine up there with the higher class demographic. The more obvious comparisons between the two magazines in the way they are set and layout. The positioning of the cover lines and main line, shows that magazines have to follow a set of rules in order for the cover to look presentable. It creates neatness and looks tidy to the readers eye, and this encourages them to want to buy it, as they probably wouldn’t buy it if it was messy and everything everywhere., so it more appealing.

IDEASIdeas that I would use for my own magazine would be the layout of vogue or glamour. I think because of my age and what I want my fashion magazine to include, this will benefit me really well. I could create an alter ego of myself who is an up and coming model, and is working her way up the fashion and model industry. She would be the main image of the magazine and her post will be the main story. I want the colours to be bright yet not too bright that it takes the focus away from the main parts. I want it to stand out and be unique. As a 19 year old girl, I follow the fashion of celebrities and its so interesting to see who steps out in what clothes and how it makes them come across, as I think you can tell a lot about someone by the way they dress.

A cover line I could include could be outfit of the day or outfit of the week. This would suit my target audience really well as young girls like myself look to magazines to see what styles are in and what ‘goes’,.

These are very vague ideas but I think when it gets to point of deciding, these are the ones I will use.