Analysis of a General Magazine Front Cover

I have also analysed the conventions of a general magazine, so that I can use it in comparison to music magazines.

Cosmopolitan is a very well-known, popular institution. It provides entertainment and advertisement, based upon fashion, beauty and real life, to attract a wide female audience. We can tell that its target audience is female by the many conventional aspects displayed on the cover. For example, the main image is of a female, Mischa Barton, and each of the cover lines relate to women and fashion, ‘Cosmo gets real about women’s bodies’. It is also stated on the front cover that this particular issue of Cosmopolitan is their ‘Naked body confidence issue’, and this seems to be represented within the main image. Mischa Barton appears to be wearing no clothes within the image, an action which is portrayed as something only ‘body confident’ people do, yet she is seemingly comfortable and confident with her appearance. She is looking straight on at the camera, which is using a medium close-up shot and a straight on angle, and therefore she is engaging with the audience. She is also smiling, further enhancing the fact that she is happy with her body. Several of the cover lines also relate to this topic of ‘body confidence’, particularly the main cover line which boldly states ‘Your Body Rocks!’. One cover line reads ‘Mischa Barton on loving your shape’, which will further attract the audience as a large audience of females will be interested on how Mischa gains the confidence which she seems to have so much of within the main image. However, not all cover lines relate to this topic, as there are still aspects of content relating to real-life and fashion, also distributed around the main image.

The Masthead is written in its recognisable, bold and capitalised font type. A range of different colours have been used, including pink, blue, white, black and purple, but all of them work well together. A range of different fonts have also been used upon the cover, which makes the magazine look more creative. Moreover, the banner at the top of the magazine is used as a further selling technique. If this is the only part of the magazine visible within a shop, the promise of two free cinema tickets for every reader may attract the reader into buying the magazine. The date and price of the magazine are visible beneath the masthead, clearly stating the month and year of publication and the clear price of £3.30. This price suggests that Cosmopolitan aims to target an audience of medium-class, as it isn’t overly expensive, nor is it particularly cheap. The barcode and website are displayed within the bottom right-hand corner.

In addition to the target audience of this magazine, though I have also identified it being female orientated, I would say that it targets a specific age group. It seems that much of the content is fairly mature, with aspects on body related issues and sex, both of which are not concerns for younger readers. One of the cover lines also relates to a woman’s marriage, suggesting that cosmopolitan targets an older audience and those who have entered into marriage. Therefore, based on the content of the magazine, I would say that cosmopolitan aims to target a wide age group of sixteen to thirty five year olds.