Magazine Cover Review

     Before the discussing and going over the magazines in class. I was unaware of the many details there are included when it comes to the art, language, titles, captions, and structure. One factor about magazines that I could see from analyzing them in class is how important the structure of the magazine is. Structure is one of the most important elements when creating a magazine because the structure of the magazine could change how entertaining or how boring a magazine is. According to the article “Chances are you won't bother to read this article. It is just one long block of text, after all, unbroken by alluring pictures, snappy captions, or eye-grabbing info-graphics. You can't click it. You can't flip it. All you can do is read it. (Does Size Matter?)” it states that, “"It is absolutely critical these days to reach out and grab the reader" says Playboy's Kaminsky. In his view, this means stories should still go long, but they need to be packaged with numerous "access points" What this explains is that in order to keep readers reading it is important that they are not just reading a long line of text that will cause them to lose focus so in order to stop that from happening they use what was described as access points in the example which. Access points in the text would mean a sidebar, picture, and graphics etc. And also according to the same article it says that, “Our readers --mainly young men and nearly eleven million strong--"are busier today then they will ever be in their lives; they have shorter attention spans than any previous generation; they are chronically over-stimulated and easily bored." What this is referring to is the structure of the magazine keeping the text short with images and captions to keep the readers entertained and not bored by long strips of text. Another important aspect I picked up was branding like how on all the Men’s Health magazines they have the big brand in the same color and formatting. Same thing on Oprah's magazine how the cover is always Opra with her logo. Another example of this would be in sports illustrated how the lettering usually matches the team of the player on the cover. Another important aspect is the language used within the magazine. This deals with who the targeted audience for the magazine is like in the Vogue and GQ  magazine you see all the designer brands so you could expect it to be directed to wealthier audiences so it might use vocabulary to pertain to their buyers.