Analysing Cover 1: Billboard, Jay Z July 2009

The first cover which I am going to analyse is the, billboard cover of jay z July 2009 addition, the magazine cover shows Jay Z as the main picture with the background of new York city, this helps us understand wear jay z is from, his urban roots and what environment he lives and works in, this is just from the one image, it tells a underlying story of the person, this helps me understand that the main image has to be simple, like this one, it could be in black and white, if there is a lot going on, or it could be simply the face of somebody, because to much going on in the main image will crowd the cover and make everything look unprofessional, and wont be able to get the point across the magazine is trying to establish, like in this one, with jay z with his glasses on and a cigar, showing him at the thrown of his city, so to speak, and the business man which he is, smoking a cigar, the upper end of hip hop, but still keeping it at the battle, you can gain all this information from just the front cover, been able to seek what the magazine is going to be like and how the flow of the magazine is going to work and how the main article is going to be about Jay Z.

The other thing about the cover of the magazine is the mast head, its been used as a background to the page, its not standing out there, its been made to have the image the most important part of the magazine, not the name of the magazine, because as it is a successful magazine, it doesn’t need to brand its name in bold and fully over the page, people will know about the magazine by just looking at a few letters from the name, so they aren’t wasting areas of the page on the title, another thing about the mast head is the colour which is used, it is white, but has some citrusy green and yellow followed by the blue, its stands out and because the magazine is filled with gray black and white, it stands out even more, so with the mast head been hidden behind the image, it still attracts the attention of the reader because of the colour which is used, this is a brilliant thing to think about because it would be a great way to show the name of the magazine without plastering it all over the cover.

The cover line also is an important area of the magazine, its there to give the reader a slight understanding of what’s going to happen in the magazine, but at the same time not giving to much away, so with the cover line ‘how rock rolls’ in this magazine, it gives the feeling that it will have a insight into Jay Z’s life and how he goes about his day to day things, people want to read about this so it would entice the readers even more to buy the magazine. This cover line is also in a bold font and the colour is black on a light background, to make it stand out and from people to notice it.

The left hand column is the other features in the magazine, other areas which will be included, the colour is red and white font, which state the bigger articles, from red been more important and white been less important, because the colour red stands out more than the white does.