Magazine Textual Analysis

Instyle magazine is a woman’s fashion magazine which is published monthly in the United States. This magazine front cover uses the colours pink for its main colour, black for the majority of the writing on the front, white and burgundy for the rest of the text on the front. Green is also used as the background colour in the puff; this is then also tied in with the green jewelled bracelet. The magazine uses the same two fonts on the front cover. Unlike the other magazine this magazine vastly uses the colour white as a main colour. The magazine masthead stays the same font and colour on almost every issue of the magazine. However the background boxes of the masthead changes colour every issue to set off a colour theme.  The magazine is classy and formal as well. The colour pink is a feminine colour and is used a lot on products because the colour appeals to girls. Although it uses the colour pink a lot, the magazine is aimed at older teens and perhaps people in their early 20s. The image on the front cover is of Gwen Stefani which is also the only image on the front cover. Gwen Stefani is an American pop singer, songwriter, fashion designer and actress. What I can see of her, she is wearing a pink strapless dress, which also matches the colour of her lipstick and six different colour bangles. One of which matches her dress and another one matches the puff just below the masthead. The dress she is wearing also shows off her class and that she has grown up from being a young and single girl, to becoming a wife and mum to three children. This appeals to the target audience because her fans and consumers of this magazine in general can relate to her as they have also grown up listing to her music and have now grown up themselves.

The magazine also features other articles shown on the cover in bigger text then Gwen Stefani’s name. This is because with just a big picture of her on the front cover the picture alone will draw in consumers to read the magazine. The cover line about Gwen Stefani says ‘on fame, family & fashion’ this is one of the most recent interviews she has done, where she is now producing her own clothing line and looking after he family. By her talking about her clothing line she is promoting her business, as well as showing that it is possible for mums to work and look after their family at the same time. This can help relate to the target audience because some readers of this magazine maybe mums or people who are trying to balance jobs, relationships and life and by Gwen Stefani opening up and showing how she balances it all it could make readers want to aspire to be like her. The masthead ‘Instyle’ appears on every cover, in the same font and the majority of the time in the colour white. This represents the magazine and the company it is owned by which it Time Inc. this is its brand identity. Consumers will see the masthead and associate it with the brand identity. The main image is of Gwen Stefani lying down and only the top half of her visible this is called a top half image.  This is an image of her from chest upwards. The main cover line is ‘Best online shopping’ they have chosen to do an article about this because shopping online is becoming more popular and by them doing an article about a few websites you will like it interests the consumer and makes them want to read the article. Overall the editors have designed the magazine so that it appeals to the target audience aged from teenagers upwards. This magazine is designed with a band identity that the masthead is always the same font but just in a different colour for each magazine it is continued through-out the magazine to develop and maintain the brand identity.