Magazine: XXL
Genre: Hip-Hop
MAGAZINE FRONT PAGE ANALYSIS 1
Masthead: Big bold and blocky red outer which then contrasts with the white font in the centre. By having this contrast upon the masthead it allows it to be easily noticed by the audience, therefore showing its importance as the name of the magazine upon the front cover.
Main Story: The main story for this front cover is easily noticed due to it taking up a lot of space upon the front cover, therefore showing its importance as the main story. In addition to that the font of the main story is presented in a bold sans serif font which is coloured black and red, the use of two different colours for the font of the main story allows it to pop on the front cover, therefore adding to effect of it being easily noticed buy the audience.
Secondary Story: The secondary story is positioned just above the main story on the front cover, therefore the reader can easily be navigated around the page once he has noticed to main story. Also the secondary story it shows its importance due to the word ‘exclusive’ being used to describe its contents, therefore providing the idea that it is something not to miss out on and that XXL magazine is the only place to get these details.
Fonts: XXL magazine uses a mixture of bold Gills sans ultra for the masthead and bold sans serif for the stories and cover lines. The use of these certain fonts really perfect that hip hop house style for XXL allowing the audience to immediately know that it is a hip hop magazine. The font colours within the magazine are kept reasonable as only black and red are used for the colours of all fonts, with red being used not as much as black to show that any font coloured red is important.
Colours: Black is used for all of the cover lines and secondary stories, white used for the font upon the masthead and red used for the most important conventions such as the main story, masthead and page numbers. This is because red it sticks out due to being a lot brighter in contrast to the black and white. In addition to that allowing the more important features and especially the page numbers to be able to stick allows the audience to be easily navigated around the magazine.
Layout: The layout of the magazine is very organised as a whole due to everything following a grid style design as well as everything being placed around the edge of the main image, almost acting as if it is a border.
Cover Lines: The sharply styled black sans serif font cover lines are neatly located upon the right side of the magazine front cover. In addition to this they are also underlined to demonstrate that they are there to serve a guidance towards the most important articles within the magazine.
Background: The background for the front cover is kept simple as it is plain white. However the use of the plain white background indicates that the magazine is positive and that it doesn’t provide any negative information. In addition to that the use of a white background allows all of the black and red coloured font to pop and stick out.
Main image: The main image consists of a medium two shot set at a point of view angle with Kendrick Lamar crouching down at the front and Dr Dre standing at the back. Furthermore both artists give serious facial expressions which demonstrate that the article about them within the magazine is serious and important. In addition to that, the way in which the two differ by the way they are dressed symbolises the importance of the two artists. For example Kendrick Lamar is dressed in very bright colours. This represents him as the new emerging talent bringing something new to hip hop which at that time he was. Whilst on the other hand Dr Dre is dressed in all black which represents him to be the shadow behind Kendrick Lamar, establishing Dr Dre to be the mentor playing a father style figure towards Kendrick.