Magazine Cover Analysis 3

This is the cover for issue 328 of The Wire, which is a modern music magazine that doesn’t focus on one particular genre, but music that is popular at the time of writing.

Including the image, there are 5 main colours on this cover: Black, White, Blue, Pink and Green. These colours not only contrast well with each other, but also attract a younger audience. They are commonly associated with pop music and therefore are relevant to the magazine and attractive for the target audience. Despite the use of bright colours to attract, the eyes are drawn to the top half the cover as this is where the light source for the image is coming from. This is helped by the fact that the band members’ overalls are left white at the top. This then makes the Masthead the first thing that the viewer reads, then the eyes move further down the page to further study the image.

Normally, on a cover, the barcode is tucked away in the corner, but here it is on the left side. This may be because if it were in the bottom corner, it would be in the way of the main image. This makes the image feel as though it is very important to the magazine and makes the readers want to know its significance. This is also shown in the masthead. A small section of the ‘I’ in ‘WIRE’ would be covered up by the image, but instead the word is over the top of the picture, so this gives the image depth and it makes the man look as though he is further away in the background than he actually is.

There are very little in the way of cover lines on this cover. Besides the barcode and Masthead, there are only 6 words on the cover. This is very unusual as normally the cover would be filled with cover lines in order to inform the reader on what’s in the magazine and therefore attract to a wider audience. This could mean one of two things: either this magazine came in a plastic/cardboard sleeve, to include posters etc. So the main cover would be on the sleeve. Or, what is much more likely is that the target audience is older, and they have the time to read the magazine to find out what it holds, so the cover is more artistic than informative.

The fonts that are used are very basic, so the text is very to the point. This gives the magazine a more formal and sophisticated feel, as to reassure the readers that the writers know what they are talking about. This psychology is used across all types of magazine, not just music, and suggests an older, more refined target audience.

Taking all of these things into consideration, I think the target audience is 15 – 30 year olds. The complicated imagery of the main picture makes me assume the audience is a bit more intelligent than working class, so I think the target class is Lower Middle – Middle. It’s a bit harder to say what the target gender is, but I think males and females would buy it, as the fonts and colours don’t really suggest that just males or just females buy it. Seeing as it is a pop music magazine, the target would be a mass market, not just specialising in one specific genre of music or band.