Analysis of a college magazine

The front cover is one of the most important aspects of a magazine. It is the selling point of the magazine and initially attracts the reader. The front cover of the magazine is a taster as to what the rest of the content within the magazine is going to be like. Any magazine institution must thoroughly research into their target audience to understand what they could relate to or what may interest them.

The colours used on this front cover are fairly neutral. The white masthead could give connotations of purity or innocence and the colour continues evenly around the magazine cover. There is a big statement red used on his shirt straight in the middle of the page. This could show a big contrast to the white, bringing in connotations of romance, sex, naughtiness and maybe even danger. This bright colour is used on the main features of the article to draw attention to the eye. The white shows that the target audience are good or ‘pure’ people that want to go to university or college to study and earn themselves a good living. But the red says that although they are students, they do not necessarily have traditional values and it shows connotations of promiscuity and a bit of danger and excitement.