Main Task: Front Cover Textual Analysis

In this assignment I’m going to analysis this front cover of a music magazine front cover named XXL.

From looking at this image of a front cover it stands out by the strong red colour within masthead, large and bold coverlines which indicate main features the magazine is going to talk about and what’s featured inside so readers know what to expect when they have a look. The main coverline is lined down in the left third of the front cover with the picture of the main image in the centre of the cover, taking up most of the cover space. The masthead is in bold white in front of a red background which makes it stand out on the front cover, it reads ‘XXL’ so people know what the title of this magazine is and the company that has produced it. The barcode is placed at the bottom left of the front cover with the date ‘June 2011’ on the side of it vertically. The website link is also stated near the barcode but just on the opposite side to the dateline, vertically.

The front cover also consists of extra features that is inside the magazine with the title ‘PLUS’, listing over popular artists underneath. As we can see this is a mid-shot of the main subject, a famous American rapper and business man who goes by the name of Birdman, is standing up, looking at the camera directly but posing, showing off his tatted arms and jewellery, this contributes to the conventions of hip-hop because having many tattoos and jewellery is the latest style now for rappers, attempting to fit in with the trend. The background of this photograph is plain white and the rapper covers the whole of the magazine cover.

The main images’ clothing goes well with the front cover because it consists of the cover’s three main colours; Red, Black and White. His clothing is pretty simple but stands out indicating he is wealthy, cares about his appearance and like a bit of style to how he dresses. His simple dress; white Tee-shirt with his company name ‘YMCMB’ labelled on it in shinny glossy bold words as the main focus of the top, all red belt and plain white jeans along with expensive jewellery. The rapper consists of several props, he has red and white beads around his wrist; on the other he has an expensive diamond watch in white and red to suit his clothing, a solid chain around his neck and a large ring on his pinky showing it off to the camera. He also has earrings and white shades on to suit his style which connotes that usually rappers have this much jewellery on to show off their riches and wealth, contributing their part to the hip-hop trend, not many other rappers decide to dress how they want and not follow the conventions.

His Non Verbal Communication shouts out ‘look at me, I’ve got it all’, his hand is at his chin looking directly at the camera with his head tilted a bit, showing off a mean looking pose trying to show case that he’s the boss, he’s got power. This photo was taken in a studio so its studio lighting behind him which is creating the plain white background.

The main coverline of this magazine front cover is ‘could the man who brought us Cash Money and Lil Wayne be hip-hop’s last mogul?’ which is meaning could he be hip-hop’s last hope for a true leader who started from nothing all the way up to what he is today. The words ‘Cash Money’ and ‘Lil Wayne’ are highlighted because it’s showing that they are the main factors or what people mainly know of when they talk about his success and creations. The words ‘Hip-Hop’s last mogul’ are enlarged in size and are in bold to catch the customers attention as they walk by so when they see the words it would get them thinking and pulled into curiosity. Other coverlines in the front cover of this music magazine are in different colours indicating the importance of each of the coverlines. On the right side of the front cover the words ‘Odd Future’ are in capital bolds in black which stands out strongly from the white background and just on top of the words it reads ‘Rap’s new supergroup’ to show that its not the main focus in the coverline.

This magazine is aimed at young people who listen to rap and hip-hop music and have an interest in the artists featured inside the magazine. This is for both male and female audiences but mainly mail because it is more common for a man to listen and be interested in this type of music rather than a female. A person who has never read this magazine before could pick it up and if they were already interested in that type of music genre then they’d find it easy to adapt to the magazine and understand it.