Textual Analysis of Two Magazines - Front Cover - XXL and VIBE

XXL

Image:

-Medium, long shot - to fit all the cover stars in the whole frame.
- White background, covers stars wearing casual, mainly white clothing - so not just one person is standing out but they all equally stand out.
-  Everyone in the image are position in some sort of pose - to look cool.
- The cover stars are young, American, up and coming rap/ hip-hop artists - this shows the type of audience this magazine issue is targeting - teenagers and young adults.
Page Layout: 
- The main colour schemes of the front cover is black and light blue. - Goes well with the white background - compliments the front cover.
- The cover stars cover the maskhead - to show the importance of the cover stars not the maskhead. -The cover stars are the ones the magazine aim to make stand out not the maskhead. - Implies XXL are a well know magazine so there is no need for the maskhead to be fully seen. - XXL are still recognisable.
- The maskhead has a red background and the XXL part is in the colour white.
- There's supposed to be a barcode on the bottom left hand side, on the front cover. As I've bought this issue at WHSmith, however couldn't upload the image I took of the magazine on to my blog. So I had to upload a image of the front cover from google images. - this shows that this magazine is bought - not a digital copy of a magazine like VIBE.- There is also a website link underneath the barcode.
- '+' - puff - implies what the additional features XXL magazine will contain.
- The Cover lines are positioned on the left in one column - continuing with the black and blue colour scheme. - shows who and what the magazine also contain.
- The additional cover line, underneath the cover stars, has a headline 'THE NEW WAVE' which displays the names of all the cover starts below it. - This stands out and so the audience know who the magazine is mainly focusing on and who the people on the front cover are.
- The cover lines are all in different style of fonts.
 Language:
- There's not much text on the front cover to know what sort of language the magazine may include. - short, catchy words are mostly used.
 - By the cover stars body language, it implies the type of genre of music they are all part of - Rap/Hip-Hop.
- One of the cover lines on the right also implies the genre of music XXL is- 'Mike Tyson still loves Hip-Hop'
- '2016 freshman class' - catchy phrase - sounds like some sort of high school / university graduation.

VIBE

Image:
- A medium long shot of the two cover stars.
- They are both dressed in casual clothing
- The background image is a brick wall and the shadow of the cover stars is show, reflecting onto the wall - The image was taken outside.
- The clothing they are wearing and their body language implies the targeted audience this magazine is. - Teenagers/ young adults.
Page Layout:
The main colour scheme used for this front cover are dark blue and white.
- The cover stars are covering the maskhead - shows the no need for the VIBE logo to be show - VIBE is a well established magazine.
- The maskhead is coloured black
- There's a website link displayed on the right side of the front cover. - implies that this is a digital magazine - to view other pages of the magazine issue go the website.
- The date - August 2016 - is displayed- show the content in the magazine is based on depending on when it was published - how current it is.
- The skyline displays the other featuring artists in the magazines.
- The cover line is displayed in the middle of the two cover stars stating who the two stars are.
Language:
- There's very little of text displayed on the front cover like XXL - implies that the magazine doesn't contain that much detailed with the magazine.