Magazine Cover Review

With the new age of technology, television, and film, magazines have had to make a large effort to catch up with the new standards set by their opponents. They’ve done impressively well thus far, by transforming what was once a collection of plain articles with some advertisements to an intricate, colorful, audience oriented and bold mashup of ideas, ads, and images. The cover page and feature article are the primary factors of these magazines and make or break their overall quality and value. The main goal of these magazines is to interest their readers, cultivate these reader’s loyalty, and make money from advertisements. These goals are achieved through certain tools and artistic choices, such as using colors, fonts, size, texture, famous people, target specific pictures, and more. 

                          

The cover page for many articles is the biggest site for baiting their audiences and grabbing their attention. One magazine, Cosmopolitan, does a great job at this by putting a young, beautiful star (Joey King) on their cover page and making her interview the feature article of the magazine. Other features, such as using bold language, lettering, and matching pink and fuchsia accents, along with using a well-liked and familiar face, draws in the reader's attention and lures them into reading the rest of the article. Another instance where we an article using their cover page to their advantage would be Maxim, a men’s targeted magazine mentioned in an article by, (Michael Scherer, Chances are you won’t bother...) “But the new magazine struck a chord just as Maxim would years later, with an edgy, funny tone, sexy pinups, and practical advice about picking up women.” With these target-specific approaches, the magazine would successfully draw in their audience and grow their following roughly 9 million strong. 

As for the cultivation of loyalty from their readers, different magazines take different approaches to this depending on the demographic of their audiences. Southern living, for example, achieves this by sticking the only the truest of southern culture and traditions, allowing their audience to trust they’ll get what they came for every time. This is accomplished by leaving examples of all different parts of southern life sprinkled throughout the article, including southern cooking, landscapes, colleges, travel, and more. Even the small details, such as the worn-down cherry wood picket fence, give that warm, fuzzy feeling of southern life that keeps their readers coming back. This is much different than Essence, a magazine targeted towards black women and fashion. This magazine is very bold with political stance and beliefs, this is matched by the red, bold lettering on the cover page and the loud outfits the models wear. This specific demographic has been underrepresented throughout history until recently, making these magazines even more empowering and heartwarming. Being bold and outspoken in a case like this keeps the readers interested as political issues continue to pop up and be fought for to this day. 

                     

Arguably the most important goal of these magazine producers, gaining revenue from advertisement, is done in different extents from magazine to magazine. Vogue is a great example of a magazine that is clearly targeted towards the higher economic class and they are quite loud about it. The magazine is very classic with black and white texts and elegant font, showing class and wealth. Throughout the magazine they place the biggest of high fashion brands, (Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, etc.) Using such high-end brands in their magazine brings in more money from the companies being advertised and therefore makes the magazine successful. Another magazine that is very advertisement focused is Motor Tred, an American automobile magazine. They show you their favorite cars, the latest releases, and give it to you all with a price tag. Page after page you see constant prices and products incorporated into their articles, catching the reader off guard and getting them more interested in certain products. These frequent ads are another strategy used to bring in the most advertisement revenue.  

                           

Some journalists argue that longer feature articles are beginning to go out of style and soon enough they’ll be a thing of the past. There are many facts and statistics on both sides, but it isn’t safe to say that either one is correct. Mark Kramer is a director Nieman program for narrative journalism at Harvard and gives us a sense of his beliefs in, (Chances are you won’t bother... Michael Scherer) when he writes, “Even though ninety percent of American eating-out money gets spent on fast food, it doesn't mean there isn't space to open up a gourmet restaurant." Kramer is essentially describing the nature of old and new forms of media coming together and being able to co-exist without cancelling each other out, similar to how fast-food restaurants, being much cheaper and accessible, are all over, but fine dining is still around and very much relevant.  

To sum up, magazines are another creative outlet with a whole artistic world I hadn’t been exposed to up to this point in my life. Although they seem very intriguing, I am still leaning towards the short film for my project. I believe it will not only be more challenging, but also more rewarding to go back and watch something I've created from scratch.