Magazine Cover Review

    Before studying magazines in class, I never really gave them much thought. The only time I've ever looked through any magazines is when I'm sitting in the doctor's office or waiting to get a haircut. I've only been interested in looking through fashion magazines. Still, after analyzing some in class, I've started to think more deeply about the elements that play into developing a printed magazine. Before looking at several different magazines, I never realized how the creators must think of ways to interest new audiences, cultivate brand loyalty, and secure advertising dollars. One magazine that I was interested in even before being shown in class was Vogue, a premiere fashion magazine filled with high-end brands and people. This magazine's intended audience is wealthy, classy, high-end women. On the front of this issue is Rihanna, and the magazine's feature article was focused on her. The magazine also provided the reader with fashion on a budget and summer style. It dipped their toes into politics mentioning a new female prime minister, giving you the idea that Vogue is a feminist magazine. This was all mentioned on the front cover. Adding to the magazine articles about every other page is filled with very high-end advertisements such as Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Louis Vuitton. The credit page is straightforward, elegant, and classic. The Cosmopolitan is another magazine whose intended audience is young independent working women. The front cover of this issue featured Joey King, a famous American actress who stars in many popular movies on Netflix. On the front cover of this issue, it establishes their stand on politics by saying, "Wear a damn mask!". It also mentions heels, nails, and sex toys all geared towards women. The credit page is in very tiny font and shows a model in the middle of the page wearing a shirt that says "Rosé". They try to weave rosé into the credits with the model because that is the stereotypical alcoholic beverage for an independent working woman. Flipping through, you see articles relating to the ideas on the front cover, and then, to top it off, Joey King's feature article ends the magazine. Rolling Stone was another interesting magazine that stood out to me. Lil Baby, a well-known rapper, listened to by many teens, is on the front cover. It's easy to tell that this magazine has a greater male readership than females. This magazine is taking a political stand, and the readers of this magazine are liberal. Before even reading the text, I noticed the background behind Lil Baby looks like a warzone. Representing the recent "riots" or "protests," depending on your views, basically implying that they are taking a stand, "protesting” what is going on in the world. So, the topics mentioned on the front cover and throughout the article include battleground Michigan, BLM, immigration, and protest songs. This issue is politically motivated and plotting against our current president Donald Trump in the upcoming election. Rolling Stone takes a political stand with Lil Baby making it clear they are left-leaning. The content page is in black and white with a very tiny pop of color and is filled with some dense articles. Besides the other issues, it also showed pictures of the places targeted by "protestors." Rolling Stone, once was filled with very long descriptive articles because back in the day, there was no Internet, but now with the ability to access anything through a screen and travel instantaneously around the globe the articles don't need to be as dense as before. Rolling Stone editor Ed Needham and his boss Jann Wenner both agree that long articles aren't necessary nowadays, and nobody reads them, including themselves. Sports Illustrated has always been a popular traditional male-targeted magazine filled with sports, but annually, however, there is Sports Illustrated: Swim Edition. Since most of the readers are men, they would enjoy looking at swimsuit models. Kate Bock, a famous Canadian model, stars on the front cover of this magazine and is known for being involved in these Sports Illustrated magazines since 2013. As you flip through the pages of the magazines, it is filled with beautiful female models. The main focus of the 2020 issue was to establish the idea that "Beauty has no boundaries." The content page is about each model and where they were shot. Looking through this, you can see that the models have become more diverse with race, body type, and even age. Before, these magazines used to be filled with the same looking blonde hair, blue-eyed women, but since establishing the idea that there are no boundaries to beauty, they have diversified the models. Nowadays, most people don't have the time to read lengthy articles. Young people are specifically claiming this, and we see that through statistics that show a steady decline over the last twenty-six years in the percentage of readers between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four. Especially young working men who have a brief attention span. To cater to the younger population, magazines like Sports Illustrated are more appealing to the younger generations because they are filled with less text and more graphics. The last magazine that caught my attention was Condé Nast Traveler. The front cover of this magazine is a drawing of a kid hanging off a tree. There are all different fonts throughout the cover page except the title and is very vibrate and colorful. The targeted audience of this magazine is high-end travelers. The content page shows a photo of a beautiful vacation home accompanied by white text representing the credits. Flipping through the magazine, they show and discuss an island odyssey and trend watch for travel. In this article, they show more visuals than text because that's more appealing to the readers when choosing a place to travel. The overall goal of a magazine is to win the reader's attention. After my class viewings and discussions, I feel that choosing the magazine for my portfolio project would be a strong choice because I'm interested in journalism, and I'm very good at catching a reader's attention when it comes to writing.