Pofessional Magazine Analysis

The following is my analysis of a real magazine cover, Batman the Dark Knight - Empire Magazine:

For my magazine cover I decided to use and modify the ideas, general layout and theme of the well-known magazine “Empire”. Empire magazine is not a genre-based magazine as it evaluates and promotes all kinds of films ranging from “Lord of The Rings” which is an action film to “Hellboy” which slots into the horror genre. The magazine has some text but you do notice when analysing several of the magazines that none of them are flooded with text and more importantly don’t drown out or draw attention away from the eye-catcher, which is the main, dominant picture. The picture usually consists of one or a collection of the main characters dropped on a white background, or black when promoting a horror film. The title is generally an eye-catching red, the title needs to be clear to promote brand recognition in the future and so the name Empire stands out and is remembered enhancing the chances of another purchase. When analysing the magazine cover of Empire promoting the release of Batman “The Dark Knight” the predominant red title “Empire” was changed to a black filling with a lime green colour outlining the text. The black and green theme continued on the cover with this being the colour of the text advertising what’s inside the magazine and textual references to interviews and movie reviews. On this magazine cover we can also see the classical conventions of any magazine with a small barcode in the corner (usually the bottom corner) and the date, price and issue number all included on the cover, however with these 3 features I am surprised to see them in an unconventional position in-between the “M” of Empire. This in my opinion gives the poster a rushed look in that there was no other place to put it so it was just randomly placed in a fairly scruffy position. One convention of most magazines I want to avoid is the cramming in of textual references. I want my text to be clear, in small amounts and not in odd positions making the magazine look scruffy and rushed. However there is a real key convention that I am keen to follow and this is the picture of the main character dominating the magazine. I feel this picture is the principal attraction of a magazine cover. In this picture we see the main character in “The Joker” who is glaring at the camera with darkened face paint and eyes. The real advantage to this picture is that the dark sense immediately tells us the film is a gothic film so the target audience who I am aiming the film at should be buying the magazine and seeing how Empire reviews/rates it. The dark nature of the Batman imagery suggests evil or badness, but Batman fans know that the stories deal with a sort of comic book evil rather than a seriously threatening one. We are not frightened by The Joker because they are comic figures, in comic make up and comic costumes. Similarly the shadowy cityscape of Gotham City is not the same as the shadowy darkness in Saw or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.