Music Magazine cover, double spread and contents page analysis

Big bold title, easily recognizable and simple. Takes up a vast majority of the top section of the magazine. The word ‘vibe’ shows relation to the fact that it’s a music magazine, in the sense of the vibe that the music creates. But its also simple and easy to remember.

The artist takes up the majority of the cover. The contrast of the grey and the blue background makes the artist immediately stands out. The artist is also very popular and many people would buy the magazine just because of the artists and wanting to find out more information about the artist.

The main story is big and bold easily recognizable. It’s made clear that it’s the main story because the font is a lot bigger compared to the stories along the side of the cover. The heading also relates to the artist on the front cover – Rihanna.

Vibe magazine – Double spread analysis

Side shot of the artists. He immediately stands out because of his tattoos and the word ‘swag’, which is written, all over his face. Its almost like he’s reading the article with the reader due to where he’s looking at.The double spread also stands out with the graffiti styled font and the contrasting red and black.

The colors black and red both compliment each other. They make one another stand out and immediately grab the reader’s attention. The graffiti along with the font gives he article uniqueness and makes it different.

Also, the picture of the artists (Soulja boy), allows us to not only know who the article is about, but it allows us to have an image of what the artist looks like.

Vibe magazine – Contents page analysis

Rolling Stone magazine – front cover analysis

The unique font, which outlines that it’s the contents page, is big, bold and eye catching. This is in comparison to the small, unique font used to tell us what the content includes.

The dark grey and black background compliments the white of the title. No only does it make it stand out, but it brightens the image.

The artist used is singer Beyoncé. Not only is Beyoncé one of the biggest and most famous women singers of our generation which makes her easy to identify and could make people want to read the magazine, but she’s also very pretty in the eyes of both men and women meaning that the magazine is trying to reach out to both audiences.

She’s seen laying down, looking at the reader with her legs in the air, almost like she’s keeping the title up with her feet. This gives the artist and the title significance to one another, almost like they are reliable on one another.

She is also seen wearing grey, which works well with the background, because she stands out, but she’s not right in the readers face, its very suttle.

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Rolling Stones magazine – double spread analysis

Rolling Stone magazine uses a candy red unique font on its title. Because of this its eye catching, and because its red on a cover with is majority black and white, the candy red immediately stands out to readers as the title.

Along the sides we have sub stories concerning artists such as Katy Perry and Drake. This allows the readers to know who are in the magazine and what other things are included such as interviews etc.

Then at the bottom we have the main story, which concerns the rap artist Macklemore. The heading also links with the artists on the front cover, which is Macklemore.

The artist on the front cover is Macklemore who we can see from a close up shot. His face takes up the majority of the magazine cover, whilst being surrounded by sub headings and stories.

It also refers his successful debut album ‘Thrift Shop’, and can be seen in yellow, which also stands out to the dull winter color that the magazine front cover contains.

Rolling Stones Magazine – contents page analysis

The double spread article in the Rolling Stones magazine is an article about singer Adele who can be seen taking up more than half of the page with her face. Her face is the first thing we see as it immediately stands out, and then the article next to her is related to her triumph at becoming one of the most famous singers in recent years.

The title is big and bold and the words ‘the triumph of Adele’ quickly stands out and attracts the readers attention because of its big and unique font. The grey background compliments the black font making it stand out and appealing to the eye. The grey and black contrast is also used to highlight the singer’s face, which also stands out. The size of the picture immediately lets the audience know whom the article is about and gives them a visual connection to the article.

The lighting not only makes the artists stand out, but it also makes it more dramatic, more appealing. Her heavily edited and air brushed face shows perfection and beauty, something all magazines do to make an artist look perfect. These changes would include sliming her face, removing any scars or blemishes and changing certain color and tones. Because of this, the artist looks perfect, which is what the magazine editors try to convey.

The first things we immediately see are the 4 rap artists. These are 4 of the most influential and most recognized rap artists in history and because of this, readers are more compelled to want to read.

The pictures also highlight what the main article in the magazine is about ‘The 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time’. This sub heading then gives relevance to the images of the artists referring to them as some of the best in Hip Hop.

The images used are actually the front covers of the magazine, representing their importance to the Hip Hop genre.

We see that the images take up a vast majority of the page, almost half, whilst the rest of the page is filled with contents referring to articles, stories and interviews within the magazine. It’s all written in a unique font which immediately attracts attention rather then being bland and boring.

The contents also highlight different categories and sections within the magazine such as Rock & Roll, Features and also the 2012 Year in Review which highlights things such as ‘the years best TV’ and ‘Movies of the year’.

The contents page is very informative in regards to telling the readers what’s in the magazine. The sub stories along with the color, pictures and heading all mix together to make a successful contents page. Its informative, appealing to the eye, catchy, colorful and exciting.

Bill Board Magazine – front cover analysis

The front cover of Bill Board magazine features singer Miley Cyrus. Miley is presented to us as very sexy, powerful and dominant by the way she is dressed and her facial expressions. The artist is seen holding onto a massive ‘M’ referring to the initial of her first name.

The magazine uses a winter color theme with a mixture of purple, blue, green and white. However, they do the opposite of what they should do and instead of darkening the cover; they in fact light up the cover giving it tone and color. The artist is central of the magazine cover taking up a large portion of it, which readers see straight away.

Around the artist are sub headings relating to stories, interviews and articles within the magazine. These can be seen in yellow and white. Yellow is used to highlight the heading, and the white is used to highlight a brief explanation of what the heading relates to.

The yellow is used as a contrast to the dark color scheme and in fact lights up the page and stands out from the rest of the other colors.

Across the middle of the cover, the words Miley Cyrus can be seen in big bold capitals. This relates to the artist on the cover, it’s quick, simple and easy to read.

The use of the artist, the big ‘M’ and the artists name in the middle, takes away the attention on the actual name of the magazine. There’s so much going on that reader’s attention is caught by things such as the artist and the prop used. Also the image of the artist actually covers part of the magazine, giving great importance to the artist. It tells the audience that the main article is about her, and gives great superiority to the artist.

Under the artists name is a question; ‘The Queen of Tween Grows Up. But Will Her Fans Follow?’ This rhetorical question is very affective because if engages the reader and makes readers think. It also outlines what the article is about, the transformation of a once Disney channel star, to a mature female singer which everyone is aware of and can relate to.

Bill Board Magazine – double spread analysis

The double spread of Bill Board magazine immediately stands out due to the artist used. Beyoncé, one of the most famous woman singers in the world, is seen taking up half of the double spread article. Straight away, the magazine has told the reader who the article is about or who it relates to.

The next thing that jumps out and catches the reader’s attention is the title of the article. ‘Fiercely Creative’ is unique because it creates an image of power and dominance on one hand, but elegance and artistic on the other hand.

The colors seen in the double spread are purple, grey and white. As we can see, on the left hand side, the purple starts off very light by the title, but then ascends darker and darker as we read down the page. It creates an effect; the title is perfectly lit up by the light pink/purple, and then gradually darkens. On the other hand we have the artist Beyoncé. A close up shot of her face lit up on a grey background. The contrast of the background and her skin tone immediately makes her stand out. The darkness of her eyes in contrast to her skin tone and hair color gives her a unique look of glamour, beauty and feminism.

She’s seen wearing a unique piece of clothing which covers her neck and half of her face. This has a relation to the word ‘creativity’. The item of clothing is also very unique, different and elegant which is trying to be portrayed in the article.

Bill board magazine – contents page analysis

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The images used on the contents page of bill board magazine relate to stories which feature in the magazine. There is a lot of text used on the contents page, and the images help give color and structure. The pictures also make it more appealing to readers.

On the contents page is a big bold title which clearly states to the reader that it’s the contents page. It’s simple but effective. The aim of it isn’t to be catching the reader attention. It’s there to inform the reader what it is they are reading.

The page isn’t necessarily bright and colorful and includes a lot of writing. The scheme used is more a winter theme with a mixture of blue, black and white. It’s not the most appealing contents page in terms of color, image and engagement, however it does what its intended to do which is not to be sparkly and beautiful, but to inform readers of the magazines contents.

In the top right hand corner is the magazine logo No1, it gives the page consistency and the readers are constantly reminded of the magazine they are reading, it’s an image which sticks in their head after reading the magazine.

Included on the page are sub stories written in black, with the sub heading written in a light blue. The outline of the heading is made to stand out with the blue writing; it catches the reader’s attention and tells them what to expect to see in the magazine. The image used alongside the sub heading/stories is a far shot of a women looking down at the headings. It creates chemistry between the imagery and the headings.