Contrasting Magazine Covers

Sugar magazine is well known for its true stories and fashion involvement that targets at an audience of females between the ages of 14-18 years old. The main attraction for any audience is what is in the magazine and how it is laid out on the front cover in an eye catching way. On the Sugar magazine cover the main image is of Leona Lewis that is famous for her singing and is at a young age which attracts the young audience they target to. Her stance shows a very ‘diva’ like pose and is something to which the audience aspire to be like. We can say that the target audience are aspirers therefore; they want to know about the lives of the rich and want the latest trends to send of signals that they are rich and can afford the latest stuff. The colours are very neon like and stand out very brightly in contrast to the darker background. The top stories within the magazine are also stated on the front cover and intrigue the readers to buy the magazine and read the rest of the story. There are many signs given off to the readers immediately by the cover, the bright pink colour denotes the fact it’s orientated around females. The dominant reading is to portray to the readers all about relationships, partly celebrity and fashion.

The men’s health magazine is a male orientated magazine hence why the title is “Men’s Health”. The target audience are males of middle age with a few years younger and older. From the title itself we can co notate that the target audience are very image conscious. All the strap lines are about health with the bold words such as ‘strong’ and ‘fit’ standing out the most. The psychographics of the target audience are the leaders, who set trends and are business men. With Obama being the first black president the covers becomes very influential attracting a wider audience as many males look up to him and in some way aspire to be like him. The writing is very bold and again relate to a more dominant male stereotype.