Magazine Analysis

Josh Clarke

Examples of Sight and Sound

• In our advanced portfolio, one of our ancillary tasks was to create a magazine front cover for Sight and Sound. To do this we had to analyse and deconstruct the typical conventions of these magazines, and understand the target audiences.

You can see that the photo’s used in S&S covers are not overly saturated with visual effects, the centre focus should be artistic and be rich in meaning.This gives us insight into the target audience, they are intelligent, educated and should be interested in films that are individual, niche in terms of narrative & cinematography. The target audience will like films that are art house.

• The colour scheme in Sight and Sound is very bleak and greyed. The titles are plain yellow and red, this is is a colour scheme carried out throughout the whole magazine, but in terms of the schemes for the main images, they are usually less colourful so as to infer a more serious meanings and connotations.

• The center piece is the anchor of the magazine, it tells the reader what issue will cover and what the main story is. In this case, we know that the main story will revolve around Leonardo DiCaprio and the film ‘The Revenant’. The simple background keeps the focus on Leo and the film.

• The masthead is used to show the audience instantly what magazine it is. It is the most colourful piece of the magazine and so will contrast with the rest of the colours and stand out.

• The coverlines or sub-headlines are there to provide more insight into the magazine, and any other potential stories that will be covered aside from that of the front photo pull. Puffs are put in place to entice readers, they will stand out and and give the reader another reason to buy the magazine.