Magazine Cover Review

 Magazines play a major role in securing audience and making advertising dollars. In order to capture the attention of the audience, the magazines used several different strategies. 

    For example, Oprah puts a large O on her magazine to establish familiarity, so readers immediately know whose magazine they are reading. Cosmopolitan uses another strategy by placing young, “hot” new celebrities on their covers to draw attention of young girls. They also used bold phrases directed at the reader such as, “Wear a Damn Mask!” in order to make the readers feel as though they are being spoken to or called in. Similarly, Vogue magazine uses popular celebrities to captivate to the reader's attention but is aimed at high class suburban women who can afford extravagant things. I know this because all the advertisements within the magazine were for name brand items that only the wealthy could afford.

     If I were to make a magazine, I would not aim it at the rich because they make up a small percentage of all the people who could potentially read it. A magazine commonly found around my home is “Better Homes and Gardens”. If I were creating a magazine, this would be the type I would aim for. An inclusive magazine that all could read about a generalized topic. I feel that this type of magazine is more realistic for the general population the Vouge, however they clearly have different target audiences. I enjoyed the camera angles and techniques on the Rolling stone magazine. The subtitle of the article was “Lil Baby’s Uprising”. To represent this through the picture of celebrity rapper, Lil Baby, he was standing on an elevated surface while the photographer used a low angle shot to show his “uprising”. This was a very clever and effective way to subtly introduce the article contents, his uprising, on the cover photo. 

    The article, “Chances are you won't bother to read this article. It is just one long block of text, after all, unbroken by alluring pictures, snappy captions, or eye-grabbing infographics. You can't click it. You can't flip it. All you can do is read it. (Does Size Matter?)” includes a quote from Rolling Stone magazine which states, "Our readers"--mainly young men and nearly eleven million strong--"are busier today then they will ever be in their lives; they have shorter attention spans than any previous generation; they are chronically over-stimulated and easily bored" This statement shows that the future of magazines will most likely include shorter, more  straight to the point articles. If I choose to do the magazine, I will try to include small exerts that will grab my reader attention, rather than bore them. The same article follows with the statement, “Despite such changes, the percentage of young readers for trademark titles has continued to erode.” This proves that the main readers of magazines still tend to be older generations. To reach a younger audience you may need to use stronger colors or images on the cover page to draw in their attention.