Magazine covers continued

Learning objective: To explore magazine covers and identify visual codes, layout and design, language used.

In the construction of magazine covers, editors are able to encode messages for readers to decode by using visual codes. For example:

• Use of colour e. g. the use of black and white, connotations.
• Clothing and physical appearance will appeal to the target audience.
• Body language of the models in the photographs
• Facial expression and gaze
• Photographic codes - angle, shot type, composition
• Lighting

Task 1: Explore the visual codes shown above within the magazine cover below and make bullet point notes in your orange books.

Layout and design are also very important in appealing to readers of magazines.  The aspects to consider are:

Typography e.g. font style, size, colour

Use of graphics

Design techniques e. g. corner banner, strip, sell lines

Cropping and editing

Composition, placement of images.

Task 2: Explore the aspects of layout and design shown above within the magazine cover below and make bullet point notes in your orange books.

Magazines will also use a language of there own to address the readership. You need to be able to identify the language used and say why it would appeal to the target audience.

Task 3: Explore the language used within the magazine cover below and make bullet point notes in your orange books. Consider:

Connotations of the title, cover lines, sell lines, Mode of address e. g. imperatives, rhetorical questioning, quotations.

Persuasive techniques e. g. alliteration, hyperbole, ellipsis

Use of slogans

Intertextuality