Main Task: Front Cover Textual Analysis 4

Denotation:

The magazine cover consists of a coloured photograph of a man looking directly into the camera. It is a close up shot showing the males head and shoulders. The photographed man’s name is next to his forehead on the left hand side. It’s not clear whether the man is sitting down or standing up. The background of the photograph is grey and the photograph covers the whole of the magazine cover. Behind the man is the ‘vibe’ masthead, and in front of him are the 6 cover-lines in blue, black and pink, with the different cover-lines separating each topic. There’s a web link on the bottom left hand corner of the magazine.

Masthead:

The ‘vibe’ masthead is very distinctive as it’s is block letters. With the background being grey and on contrast the bold blue writing makes the masthead stand out to the readers. The font that’s used for the vibe masthead is called ‘Typohile’ the masthead uses a contrast of capital letters and lowercase letters. The word ‘vibe’ is a noun which is also slang which can describe how one may feel about each other “example: you have a good vibe”. The magazine ‘vibe’ covers the hip hop/urban culture with a strong focus on music, articles, interviews and information.

Character:

The photographed male is of the very famous American rapper/singer Kanye West.

Composition:

He is posed in a very natural/ comfortable way, he doesn’t smile or doing anything different with his face. Example: pose. His clothing is very low-key suggesting that he’s a very normal, down to earth person

Costume:

You can’t see any of his clothing except for the collar of his jumper/cardigan which suggests him being down to earth and simple because that’s what most other people wear.

NVC:

His non verbal communication could come across as if he wasn’t bothered when this photograph was taken; he looks UN interested and almost a bit angry and plain or could also portray confidence and/ or cockiness.

Lighting:

There looks like there is a lack of lighting because the picture looks quite dim

Setting:

He’s not in a setting; he he’s got a grey backdrop behind him.

Cover-lines:

The main cover-line that relates to the photograph says “the truth hurts Kanye west ‘I am rap’ this is making a reference to the type of music he does and also it backs up the photograph, because the statement that he made was quite cocky and confident and that’s how he looks in the cover photograph. The other different cover-lines tell the reader that this magazine doesn’t focus just on Kanye West, or just one genre of music – the diversity in the genre of music gives the readers a variety to read about.  The other artists mentioned in the other cover lines were; J dilla, the dream, Britney spears, jay rock, Smokey Robinson and many more. Also the ways the cover lines have been written suggest gossip, “Battle for J dilla’s legacy”.  All the cover-lines are written in the same for ‘Son Serif’

Target audience:

Considering the points that I’ve made the target audience would be to the younger generation 23+ and aimed to both males and females. They would be interested about music especially r&b and urban types of music