Magazine Cover Review

    My initial impressions of the printed magazines and the impact of the cover image and feature article are that there are many aspects that go into it, like the font, picture styles, and overall message. All of these things can change the interest of the audience depending on how they are put together.  

 

    The cover image is very crucial to draw in the audience as it is the first thing they see when looking at the magazine section. Each magazine company has a different targeted audience, and the cover photo can affect that. The magazine "Vogue" is targeted towards more wealthy rich women and men, and the cover reflects on this in the way that it features Rihanna, a very beautiful stylish rich woman. If you are interested in style and high-end fashion, then this would grab your attention very fast. Without an interesting cover photo, you can easily lose the interest of the audience. Michael Scherer from Columbia Journalism Review states " Most magazines now resemble movie posters more closely than they do the dry pages of a book,". 

 

    The information on the cover page is another important thing that tells the audience the main thing the magazine is going to talk about, and kind of shows what the whole magazine brand is about. The magazine "Oprah" includes the word "Joy" from the cover page through the whole magazine and tries to bring positivity to the audience. The magazine including the word "Joy" from the very start is a very smart aspect that can make it a good magazine. Michael Scherer from Columbia Journalism Review states "they have shorter attention spans than any previous generation,". This shows that the magazine must prove to be interesting from the start. 

 

    An interesting approach I saw in the magazine "Sports Illustrated" was that they tried to include multiple audiences' interests in an attempt to draw in a bigger group of readers to improve their profit. They made "Sports Illustrated Swim" to expand to bring in more women to buy the magazine, rather than just men buying the regular sports addition. 

 

    The feature articles are very important in the magazines and there's a lot that needs to be thought about when looking at them. Most feature articles are found deep in the magazine, which causes the reader to have to go through everything before them to the article itself. This can be shown in many magazines like "GQ" and "Cosmopolitan". This is where they can put in advertisements to make more money and give more information that the audience didn't really know they were going to get.  

 

    From what I've been reading and viewing in class, I think that I'm going to select the magazine for my portfolio project because it seems like something I would be more interested in. I want to be interested in the project that I will be doing.