Music Magazine Cover Analysis

This magazine that I have chosen to analyse is a popular R&B/Hip-Hop music magazine. The reason I have chosen this magazine is because it is similar to the type of magazine I will produce for my main task.
The font colours that are used have been made to contrast with the singers’ hat ‘Green, Yellow, Black and White’. This is a good use of colour as it contrasts well and looks attractive to the audience’s eye. The magazine name is in capital block letters and is the biggest font on the page. The reason for this is so that the audience will recognise the magazine title first, as it’s a popular magazine.
The magazine’s name “Vibe” is in see through writing to give a special yellow glowing effect.
The letters and words on the front cover are all bold and written in capital letters; again they stand out and also complement each other. They follow the urban style of lettering, all the letters stand out individually and the words and letters are framed around the celebrity ‘Young Jeezy’ who is the centre of the magazine and various other stories are surrounding the celebrity. Alliteration has been used next to the rappers head “Power, Paper, Pain”

The hat that ‘Young Jeezy’ is wearing can be seen as a prop in order to contrast with the magazine design. The diamond earrings and silver chain connotes his wealth and success of his Hip-Hop career. This singer isn’t actually wearing a costume as his shirt is off to expose his tattoos from this we get a connotation of a rapper as their stereotypes is to have tattoos.
Young Jeezy has a stern serious look on his face to show that he is tuff, he is also looking straight into the camera to connect with the audience. This grabs the reader’s attention, and makes them look at the magazine.
This shot is a big close-up of his face so that we can see the emotion in his face and be drawn into the surrounding words.
The words are all covering the side of his face so that after we look at his image our eyes can be drawn to the words on the magazine.The beginning of his name is in black (Young) so that the audience can see that it is his name. Overlapping is used to add a bit of fun to the magazine.

The layout also emphasis the chosen photo of Young Jeezy.
High key lighting has been used on this front cover in order for us to see the rappers face clearly. At the top of the cover it comes across as light than the rest of the page because of the yellow glow title. The middle section of his face is quite bright as it is the centre and gets darker on the outside.
The less important information is in smaller font in the corners of the page. None of the words are properly covering his face. All the celebrity’s names are in yellow writing to show the equal importance, but Young Jeezy isn’t in yellow writing, which shows that the magazine is mainly based on him and that the image is relating to an article within the magazine.
The target audience is for older teenagers and above and this tells you that the magazine is for a younger audience.
The skyline at the top of the page gives us information about articles within the magazine.

By Kamara Israel-McLeish