Main Task: Front Cover Textual Analysis

Denotation:

The magazine cover shows a colour photo graph of a famous pop singer, Lily Allen looking directly into the camera. It uses a close up showing just her face and shoulders. Through this we are unable to see the background and surroundings. The background is a gradient from black to light grey, with the image covering almost the whole of the magaazine cover. Behind her is the masthead for the magazine billboard as well as 6 cover-lines in white and pink, including the main cover-line. The artists name is in big white letters, and page numbers for each cover-line being used to seperate them. A barcode is just about visible in the bottom left hand corner.

Masthead:
The masthead for this particular magazine cover is almost completley covered by the main image of Lily Allen making it very difficult to read. However we are able to tell that the font used is Sans Serif to give it the more modern magazine look. This connotes that the magazine itself is very iconic, not needing to show all of the masthead, and people still are able to identify what magazine it is. The word billboard is commonly known as large object to advertise information and the latest news, suggesting that the magazines information is worth reading and interesting to its readers.

Character:
The cover photograph is of the famous pop singer 'Lily Allen' who is very well known.

Composition:
The use of the close up image allows us to just focus on her facial expression, which can be suggested as seductive or sexual. But can also be seen as quite a blank expression without much emotion.

Costume:
With the use of the close up shot we are unable to see the full costume that she is wearing. the only thing we are able to see is the headband around her head, which could connote the 'hippy' look related to the 60's and 70's pop culture. From the image this is all that is all that the audience can take from the image.
NVC:
Her non verbal communication can be seen as quite seductive or quite lost due to the possible impression of a blank expression. her mouth is slightly open which gives her this quite seductive look, however he eyes along with this couldd give people the impression of a blank or lost expression.
Lighting:
The lighting is quite high key to show the possble bubbly personality of the artist.
Setting:
There is no setting, just the use of a black and grey gradient background this could connote that the artist doesn't need gimics or a proper image to be noticed.

Cover-lines:
The main cover-line that can be seen is 'Lily Allen the singer speaks out'', this could be making reference to the fact that she doesn't do alot of interviews or talk about her life to other people, giving readers the opportunity to understand more about the singer as a person and not just what she does for a job, and offering insight on how she copes with celebrity life, stated underneith, 'How She Deals With Perez And The Paparazzi'. The other various cover-lines tell us that the magazine doesn't only just focus on music, and one aspect of it but other sorts of music as well as designer labels, and news about well known companies. Other artists mentioned on the cover include 'Lady Gaga', 'Taylor Swift', and 'Ludacris', showing that the magazine offers information about a variety of genres of music, applying itself to a wider audience. Other cover-lines such as 'Four big deals to watch at midem 2009' show that they are very diverse with what they write, as well as focusing on other new readers may be interested in to keep them reading. The cov-lines focus on a sans serif font giving the magazine a more modern look and sticking to the simple design for a magazine cover.

Target Audience:
considering all the connotations and design of the magazine cover, the likely target audience would be mainly woman, and aspiring singers, because of her talk about dealing with paparazzi, possibly giving tips, giving these singers an opportunity to have a better understanding of what its like to be a well known celebrity. Probably aged between 15-30, with knowledge of pop culture and have a definate interest in the music itself.