Magazine Cover Review

          When thinking back to my initial impression about magazines, this has changed to what my idea of these are today. Before I would look at the magazines at my normal Publix grocery store and look at all the “Jaw Dropping Drama” as their article topics and what photos of well-known actors are found inside of the magazine… Never opening the magazine to read it keep in mind. I love seeing the bright vibrant colors making the titles pop but never utterly understood why they looked the way they did to be honest, but now I understand why.  

            One element that plays into developing techniques to interest the readers or viewers would be the color and font of the main title of the magazine. Typically, the title is big “Wow” or what catches the readers eye for interest first. In the magazine “Better Homes & Gardens” opening title was the word “Halloween” in a bold Orange simple font located at the top of the magazine. Below is a screenshot of this exact magazine I chose to examine and take notes on what to include for my project.  

Another example where the magazine utilizes its title as an eye catcher can be found in the magazine “The Essence Magazine” where the pinkish yet coral tinted title with matches the main famous or face of the magazines hand gloves. “Most magazines now resemble movie posters more closely than they do the dry pages of a book. They are filled with color, oversized headlines, graphics, photos, and pull quotes.” (Scherer, 2002) demonstrates how the magazines have changed over time with the addition of elements such as color. This is important because it not only makes the title pop, but it also makes the reader notice the famous person located on the front page. 

 In the “Cosmopolitan” magazine they use a bold title page, but the content pages are different when it comes to what color for each word. These are all important example as to how the cover page of a magazine not only catches the eye of readers but also how important these elements pay into the companies’ ideas and what they advocate for. The Cosmopolitan magazines I collected from my local Publix all demonstrate the bold, vibrant title pages that are draw the viewer/readers to their magazines.  

       

Another choice of element that can be found that is utilized in magazines is the overall messages that these companies want to portray to their buyers and readers. When looking at a magazine it is important to realize why you are buying it, it is not for the colors, it is for the ideas that are being stated or portrayed. For instance, “The Oprah” magazine represent their message to “find the joy” by showing that this company is a support group filled with love for women.  

 

Although the last magazine advocated for joy, the Cosmopolitan magazine shows Joey King as the latest look for females and how they should be comparing their own image to hers.  

  

An additional article that specially targets their readers can be found in the “Better Homes & Gardens” magazine where they specifically target people who have time to make these crafts and those who go above and beyond. This also demonstrates the fact that less people are starting to watch the television and read magazines because of many reasons such as the ones stated about the overall message to the readers. "You get subscribers who are not really interested in your magazine" Capell explains, pointing out that renewal rates dropped to 46 percent last year, the worst in five years. (Dan Capell, 2002). 

 

            Overall, I am still deciding on weather I want to choose a magazine as my portfolio or a movie. I feel confident in producing a magazine as a product rather than a movie because I feel like I have more of the ideas to generate this.