Critical Analysis of Indie Magazine Front Cover

A very striking picture of a very famous music artist is used to grab the attention of customers on this 'Citizen K' magazine cover. The use of such a well known singer lets the readers know that this a very high-budget and serious music magazine, its also really defines the target audience to people who are interested in the music that its represented by the artist featured on the cover. Because the top few inches of the magzine is likely to be the only section visible to customers whilst on sale in the shop 'Citizen K' have decided to overlap the masthead with the of face the well known artist, this will let everybody know who is featured in the issue and hopfully boost sales by people who are interested in this particular artist buying the issue. A very neat structure is used for this magazine, this shows that the target audience for this magazine is for slighly older and slightly more neat and upper class people than magazines with more 'scattered' layouts such as 'Vibe' and 'Smashhits!'. The price on this magazine is backed on a different colour than the rest of the cover to make it really stand out, it is very important that i price my magazine well. If i price my mgazine to high then the targte audience will not be able to afford it as they are only teenagers and may not have a job or a disposable allowance, i also need to make sure that i do not price the magazine to low as then not enough profit will be made and also a low price make make people think that the magazine is slightly tacky and/or lower class. The typical three colours colour scheme is used on this magazine cover with black white and grey, this drab colour pallette makes the cover seem civilised and also gives the impression that it is aimed at a middle-ages target audience. The bland colour scheme makes the red star on which the price placed stand out even furthur to the customer, the star is also placed high up the magazine, i believe in the hope that it will show when positioned in the shop, perhaps with more expensive magazines. This will help sales of the magazine. All in all i think this is a very effectve magazine cover although i am much more fond of a rougher less structured apperance personally.