Textual Analysis of Magazine Cover

This is a magazine cover of Katy Perry from the Magazine 'Billboard'. Billboard is an American, weekly magazine that devotes all its work to music and the news that surrounds the music industry. This is a well planned magazine cover and all the aspects stand out in different ways, and they have also prioritised in what aspects such be bigger than the others, for example the name of the artist "Katy Perry" is the biggest in font other than the name of the magazine. In the smaller font, there is information that is inside the magazine, however this is in smaller text to ensure that people are not diverted from the main picture on the cover. Due to Katy Perry being a well known artist within both the UK and America, the idea of having Katy Perry on the front cover on the magazine is a good idea as she is popular all over the world.

This week edition of the magazine is the 'spring' edition, which is clearly shown in the colour and ideology in the photo. As the background is pink and Katy Perry has large flowers around her, as if she is 'modelling' then it creates a vibrant cover which will attract audiences to buy it. Katy Perry is also shown as a 'style icon' in this picture as she is wearing a floral dress that was very current in the spring and summer of this year. This invites people in even more to buy this edition of the magazine as, they may want to find out where the outfit is from, and think that this information is in the magazine.


'Billboard' is a usually associated with pop/chart music and so is quite popular and a lot of people know about the magazine even if they do not listen to the type of music that the magazine involves. However, magazines to do with more alternative, rocky, or indie music are usually not as well known and applies to a much more niche audience. For example, below there is a photo of a magazine cover from NME magazine. This magazine focuses on a much more different side to music, involving indie, metal music and rock.

 As you can see from the magazine cover, there are lot more darker colours and compared to the 'billboard' magazine where they show the seasonal nature, NME do not. They generally have the same colours within each edition of the magazine, just involving a different artist.

As you can see from the front cover, they still have the same aspects of a typical magazine cover, involving the large font for the artist and then small font for the other aspects. However, the font underneath the artist is a lot more 'vulgar' and 'sexual', involving words such as "sex, skins and standing in the way of control". This connotes that there maybe photos about the band inside that are nude or with minimal clothing. This is a large difference compared to the pop magazine 'Billboard', which is quite 'sweet' and 'pretty'.

This shows the difference between genres and the types of magazine that the music industry produce. It connotes the different clothes they wear and the way that people that enjoy the music, look. As we are doing a pop video, we will aiming the look of our magazine cover towards the 'Billboard' magazine look, to enhance our chosen genre. 

When making our magazine cover, we will include such aspects of the 'billboard' magazine, including bright colours, large picture of the artist etc, and I will continue to research more magazine covers to develop my knowledge and ideas further.