Saturday, 20 March 2010

Textual Analysis - Empire Front cover 1


The title of the magazine is an important aspect of any magazine. This is so that it can be easily recognisable to people who are new or current fans of the magazine. It also makes it easy for it to be differentiated from other magazines that focus around the same topic, in this case films.

After a magazine has built up a large fan base and it is well established as a leading producer for a specific topic, it can then be more creative with the way the front cover of its magazine in presented. For example, in this front cover, because ‘Empire’ is well established magazine, they can make the main focus of the magazine cover a film feature, instead of the main focus being around the actual magazine. This is done by the picture which, is advertising the film ‘Iron Man 2’, covering up part of the name of the magazine.

Another feature which is important for a ‘film’ magazine to have on its front cover is a feature film which has being out in the cinemas recently or which is about to be in the cinemas. This is to attract the attention of people who are interested in new and upcoming feature films and are wanting an opinion on if it is good or not. The feature film on the front of the magazine can be presented in a few ways; by having a main focus picture that many people can see clearly, by having a large title of the film and also by changing or editing the rest of the magazine front cover to relate to the main focus film, which in this case is done by having the title of the magazine glowing, with electrical looking lightening coming off it.

The colouring of most magazines would change with each issue, mainly to prevent it from becoming boring and repetitive, but also to keep it so that it is consistent with the feature for that particular issue. For this magazine front cover it is a dark blue colouring, with the contrast of red and white. This is to coincide with the picture that is advertising the film, yet in previous issues the colour scheme of the magazine has being different, to match the film that is being advertised on the particular issue.

As well as there being a large section of the front cover devoted to advertising the one film, there is also a section of the front cover that is shown to advertise some other smaller film releases that are included within this issue of the magazine, one of these being Avatar. This section of the magazine front is at the bottom of the cover, which is done to ensure that the main attention is on the main film. This section is also presented as being like a roll of film cells, to highlight the fact that this is a film magazine and relate the magazine to what its content is about.

As well as there being these smaller features at the bottom of the magazine front cover; there are also some relations to the content of the magazine at the top of the magazine, above the title ‘Empire’. These are to highlight some extra things that are included within the magazine, and the fact they are put there without much detail makes the reader of the magazine become more intrigued to find out what there is to be said.

To show the readers of the magazine how good it actually is, awards that the magazine have won are deliberately presented on the front cover to gain more recognition for what they do, and how well they do it. In this case they are showing the fact they won ‘ultimate review of 2009’. By doing this, it is allowing the readers to have confidence in what they are reading, and know the opinions are decent and honest and facts of interests they may have.

Other important features to include on any magazine front cover are bar codes, a date and an issue number. These things are important to have for it to look consistent with how magazines are presented and produced and also that sufficient information is available for readers and people selling the magazine.

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