Semiotic Analysis Of A Magazine Cover

 

I have analysed a popular magazine cover using semiotics, exploring the content of the cover such as the masthead, cover lines and main image to understand the audience the magazine is aimed at and what is done to these features to make them appealing to the target audience.

Anatamoy Of A Magazine Cover

The UK Magazine Industry

The main task is to produce  3 pages for a music magazine, a front cover, contents page and double page spread. Therefor I have began to research and explore the UK magazine industry.

Evaluation Of The Preliminary Task

Completed Preliminary Task

My completed student magazine front cover follows the conventions of a typical magazine cover, using a masthead central image and cover lines. I think my cover will appeal to the student audience because I have made sure not to over complicate the page, making it seem boring, I have also included features that will interest a teenage audience, such as a puff offering the chance to 'win £50'.

My contents page also follows the conventions of a typical contents page. I have considered layout to ensure the page does not look too over crowded, I have also considered colour and fonts. To ensure the page doesn't look too busy I have followed a theme of blue and black, along with using just one font. I think by considering the layout and keeping the page simple this will appeal to a student audience, also the features mentioned such as part time jobs and competitions will interest the audience.

Student Magazine Market Researching & Planning

Preparing For The Front Cover

This is the original photo I took for my student magazine cover. When taking the photo I considered spacing around the model to ensure the face or main features were not covered by text, I also considered an interesting background that contrasted well with the model's black outfit.



This is my magazine cover photograph after I used Photoshop. I cropped the image slightly to make the model more central and I have also used the clone stamp tool to make the background seem less busy and over crowded, but still kept the colours and texture.

Photoshoot 1

For photoshoot one I had to take photos of events around the college, practicing framing and composition. When taking my photos I considered important features such as line, balance and framing.
 

Original Photo

Using Photoshop I cropped this image to remove some unwanted space and also to make the main subject more central. As well as this I worked with brightness, contrast and curves to make the photo more effective and appealing.

 

 





Preliminary Task

For the preliminary task we had to produce a magazine cover and contents page for a new college magazine. After doing research and taking our own photos we used Photoshop to edit them, cropping them to remove any unwanted space, adjusting them to make them more effective and appealing and also using the lasso and refine edge tool to cut out images. We produced our work in InDesign to get used to the software and used a grid layout to ensure everything was placed properly and effectively.