Magazine Cover Review

The cover of a magazine sets up the readers experience with the articles and pictures inside. Magazines with bright, bold print titles and pictures prepare readers for exciting articles, covers with cool colors and mellow fonts and photos make readers expect a more laid-back approach. Regardless, magazine covers make readers unconsciously have an opinion of the content of a magazine before they even turn to the first page. An example of the importance of magazine covers is shown by Oprah magazine; the bright, sunny yellow portrayed on the cover of the September edition of Oprah reflects the sunny demeaner of her joyful articles sprinkled throughout the reading. The format of Oprah’s articles uses more short bursts of text than long, complex articles. This idea is discussed in 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?)”, the author reviews opinions and research done to disprove the idea that magazines with long articles won’t sell. Contrasting with Oprah’s sunny take on things, Men’s Health utilizes big, bold, red, black, and white lettering to send it’s point across. The combination of aggressive fonts and the abruptness of the article titles truly reflects that Men’s Health is geared towards males (this is also shown in the name of the magazine). Another magazine directed towards men, GQ, uses bright, blue, flame lettering in its special edition featuring Travis Scott. The flame-theme is carried over to the featured article, also focused around Scott, and reflects the hot uprising of new stars in today's media. 

Some magazines aren’t directed towards just men or women; Southern Living doesn’t just focus on gender, but also the demographic of southern Americans. The aesthetic cover and large, white title are trademark for Southern Living, as well as the simple content page and advertisements for southern travel. The beauty and easiness of Southern Living is meant to reflect the simplicity of the south and the people living there. Another magazine that’s not specific to gender is Rolling Stone. Although many editions of Rolling Stones focus on more manly ideas, it’s not purely for men. The September edition features Lil Baby, with large, red lettering, and bold, straight-to-the-point article titles, Rolling Stones states exactly what the magazine is going to discuss. Rolling Stones is directly referenced to in 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?)”, in this article the format change of Rolling Stones is discussed. Rolling Stones switched from long articles to multiple, shorter articles to accompany for the theory that long articles negatively affect readership. After reviewing multiple different magazine covers, I think I've decided to do a magazine instead of a movie. I enjoy photography and writing articles, both of these skills will be put to better use in a magazine.