Analysis
I am going to analyse a real magazine cover of a magazine aimed at schools and colleges for possible ideas that could contribute to my own work:
Secondary Teaching
The photograph is of two students, one male one female.They are both wearing identical school uniform which is a maroon jumper with a plain white shirt underneath and a maroon and dark blue tie. There is no school logo on the jumpers, which shows that the magazine isn’t just aimed at one particular school, but possibly many different schools. The male student is coloured and the female student is white, which shows that the magazine isn’t racist. In front of both the students there are notebooks, folders and sheets of paper on a grey, shiny surface. The female’s folder is pink and the male’s is blue. The female student is holding a yellow pencil near to the lined paper in a notebook as if she was writing or is going to write something. There is a blue pen on the notebook in front of the male student. There is also an object place in front and to the side of both students, which is possibly stationary. The male’s is, again, blue and the female’s is pink. This gives the impression of a school setting, the shiny surface been the desk. Also note that the paper, notebooks, folders and the pen have been placed randomly, not neatly, to give an even more realistic and obvious impression of a classroom setting. The background is neutral so the audience focus only on the students, who are obviously the main image. The male has his hand up and his mouth open in a smile, as if he is answering a question in a classroom and is happy and confident that he knows the answer. The female has a pencil in her hand as if she was going to or was writing something but she is obviously distracted by the male as she is staring at him. She is half smiling and her eyes are slightly narrowed and her eyebrows are slightly raised almost as if she is kind of mocking what he is saying. She has a sort of smug expression on her face. Also note that her hair is tied back, which adds to the idea that she is a school student. The images of the students are relevant to the main story which is: ‘Do boys and girls learn differently? … and can your teaching redress the balance?’ It is obvious this is the main story as it is next to both images in a bold font and is the only text bearing one other bit of text, which is printed in small text to show this is not the main story, that is printed on the focal point of the page. There is also text above the main images with a line underneath it to separate it from the focal part of the cover. This text is subheadings advertising what is inside the magazine e.g. ‘Dyslexia-How easy is it to spot?’ The font is bold and in different bright colours e.g. a brightish pink, so it stands out. There is also a small image of a voting pad to the right of the text, relevant to a sub-heading. The main heading of the text on the male’s side of the cover is printed in blue and on the female’s side is is printed in pink- this is relevant but stereotyping slightly as you usually associate blue with boys and pink with girls. The text links with the fact that on the male’s side his equipment is blue and on the female’s side it is pink. The small text however starts with the opposite colours e.g. on the female’s side it is blue and on the male’s side it is pink: possibly to try and show that it is not stereotyping too much. The magazine logo is simply: Secondary Teachers in a basic bold font. The colour fades slightly from a lightish blue to green. The word secondary is bigger then the word teachers which is placed much smaller underneath the word secondary. On the male’s side of the cover his hand covers a bit of the logo which suggests that the name will be well known to the people who buy this magazine which makes sense as it is aimed only at teachers and probably has to be ordered specially and they would not order it if they didn’t know about it e.g. it is not really advertised anywhere. The date is printed in a grey font underneath the main images and shows the magazine is probably published monthly as it doesn’t have an exact date just September 2008. The website is also printed next to this which is advertising as the audience could then go and look at the website and find out more about the magazine and it could persuade them to buy it again. There is also a logo which is a rainbow and the words ‘department for children, schools and families’ which shows the magazine is approved by a relevant department. The magazine is obviously aimed at teachers as the name of the magazine is ‘Secondary Teachers’ and the stories inside the magazine are about teaching e.g. …’Can your teaching redress the balance?’ The image of the students is relevant to this as teachers, obviously, teach students. The people who buy this magazine will be teachers of various secondary schools, not the name of the magazine ‘Secondary teachers.’ They are probably not paying for it themselves but the schools are most probably investing in it to try and improve teaching methods. Therefore the magazine will probably be quite cheap as if it wasn’t then schools wouldn’t buy it as they would use the money on another way to improve teaching. It is obvious it is not expensive because of the quality of the paper and the quantity of pages, it is not thin but not really thick and it is not fancy, just basic but attractive. They are probably placed in the staffrooms so when the teachers have spare time and breaks they can read something but also learn to improve their teaching methods at the same time which is important for schools. The layout is simple and easy to follow with basic fonts used for the text. However, the text is written in bright colours so the cover looks attractive and not too boring. The basic fonts and layout emphasise the fact the magazine is for adults as teenage and children’s magazines would be bright, bold, messy and use different fonts at different angles. The audience are mostly going to be teachers and so the stories will be relevant to teaching. The institution (who published, wrote, created e.t.c the magazine) is ‘The Department for Education and Skills.' They are a department specialising in teaching and schooling. This is relevant to the audience as the audience will be teachers and they will learn things from the department. The main story is extremely relevant as it is helping teachers to teach different sexes better as they apparently learn in different ways. This is seen as important as it is relevant. The image on the cover represents the main story and shows the genre of the magazine which is schools and teaching. Note that the cover is split into two one side, the male, been the front and the other, female, been the back which separates the two sexes and goes with the main story which is implying males and females learn differently.
