Magazine Cover Review

    I personally don't read magazines, but they have very capturing cover pages at the store that makes me want to buy them. Nowadays most magazines have changed their style to capture modern readers that are used to get their information off the internet or on their phones. According to the article "Most magazines now resemble movie posters more closely than they do the dry pages of a book. They are filled with color, over sized headlines, graphics, photos, and pull quotes." This quote compares to another part from the article which talks about how this generation which has a short attention span which has influenced magazines to shorten their article. Many magazines did not change; an example is the "Oprah Magazine". Many people know Oprah from her show and many people follow her work and her magazine network. She has been on the cover of every single magazine and matched her picture with the theme of the month or of an issue. Most of her audience is middle aged white women so her main articles are about things that would interest her audience. The example we looked at was how Oprah talked about Joy in Mourning and her own personal similar experience so to help the reader navigate like circumstances. Another example we looked at was "Cosmopolitan" and on the cover there was Joey King, an actress many teenagers know and adore which can tell us that the audience of this magazine is young adults. The magazine's message was encouraging us to wear a mask and why it is important during this period. The font was bold and the front page had someone you would be jealous of, perfect body. The main article was about Joey King which had her wearing something completely different then the cover page, a change in style showing how well Joey King looks.

    Another great example is “GQ magazine”. GQ magazine is usually a magazine targeting men, as the main cover shows a man dressed in a suit and tie, keeping the same cover page for every magazine they've published. This magazine is much more different than Cosmopolitan as they come right out with the main statement on the cover, as Cosmopolitan discusses it in the article ad not on the cover page. As you open the magazine you can see branding of many companies which can suggest that the readers are interested in fashion designers. The magazine keeps the same font from the cover to the main article. Most people don’t read the articles on magazines but look at the pictures that are taken for the magazines which nowadays are more appealing than what the article is trying to say. As stated in the article, “’They have reduced the amount of text and increased the pictures boxes, and captions’ says Roger Black... ‘Thirty years ago it was a major effort to get anybody to think about that’”. 

    

    Another method to get people to buy their magazines is an example from “Sports Illustrated” which in the example we saw had a light background with a model in a bathing suit on the front cover. This suggests that Sport Illustrated audience is sold to mostly men, but the traditional magazine has a variety of colors, lots of headlines and a sport artist on the front. The background usually follows the jerseys of the sport artist. This magazine is likely to catch the eye of a sport fanatic. Finally, the last example is “Conde’ Nest Travel” which is a magazine that shows a variety of places that could be fun and beautiful to visit. This magazine has mostly pictures but from the pictures you can tell which places to visit with family, or friends. There is some description of the places, but since you can find most of detailed informations online the magazine only provides limited information.