Magazine analysis and deconstruction

Magazine analysis and deconstruction

I will analyse and identify the key features of the front cover of a magazine I own, called XBOX WORLD.

MASTHEAD

FEATURE – KILLER EXCLUSIVE ‘QUOTE’

Background

Consistent style

Barcode + publisher

Puff

Masthead – The name off the magazine, has its own font and is representative of the whole style of the magazine. It should be the most recognisable thing on the page. It’s always at the top of the page so it is easily seen, even if the magazine is stacked behind others. The font is consistent with the Style of the mag and resembles block letters and is in front of a green block background. All the straight edges make it look professional and organised. On Photoshop, the masthead would be created by typing the text on a layer on top of the block layer, which would have been created by the rectangle tool

Feature – The main feature of the magazine. Somewhere in the magazine there is likely to be a 2-page spread or more which focuses on this topic. The main feature in this magazine is an ALIENS game (inspired by the movies), so threes a big scary alien dominating most of the page, even covering some of the masthead and obscuring some letters. This is a worthwhile decision however, as it draws attention to the alien and the magazine is still recognisable by its style, which it relies on a lot.

Infront of the dark aliens body in the name of the game; ALIENS COLONIAL MARINES which is in white text so it stands out. The ALIENS feature is described as a ‘killer exclusive’ and there’s a quote “it’s like playing the movie!” which is sure to interest people.

There isn’t much writing on the cover and most of the rest of it is teasers; ‘why next gen gaming is already here’ and ‘is Xbox the new pc?’.  These are all incentives to buy the magazine and read what’s inside, and use some gamers terminology when referring to things. The way the text has been created over the background is pretty simple in Photoshop. Using the ‘horizontal type tool’ The text could be typed straight over the background and the font, size, colour and everything else can be changed after.

The background (and the alien) is likely just from the games concept art, maybe with some small tweaks to brightness and contrast. The background and the alien appear to be 2 different layers, because the masthead is behind the alien. I think the layers go like this

Background > Masthead > Alien > Everything else

Also on the page is a ‘puff’ with some more writing in it. It’s significant because it’s the only red thing on the page (apart from the publishing company’s small logo) and attracts attention to the writing inside (advertising another feature). The puff would be created by using the custom shape tool and the writing, same as before.

That’s everything on the page, apart from the names of some recognisable upcoming games on the bottom to seal the deal, plus the barcode, serial number and publishers logo which would be standard on any magazine