Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is still editor and publisher, and music critic Ralph J. Gleeson.
Magazine Front Cover Analysis
Rolling Stone Magazine Cover
Rolling Stone always features their trademark italic masthead where only the colour differs in each issue. The cover also generally features an engaging centre-image, here it being rap artist Lil Wayne. The white background allows for the masthead and centre-image to appear more illuminated, which engages readers more efficiently. As the magazine’s most prominent feature is the music (hence the title ‘Rolling Stone’), the cover story and apparent main article is based on Lil Wayne and the story ‘Lil Wayne Goes Rock’. This cover line is followed by an anchoring tagline ‘Rap’s Genius Changes His Game’. Each of the cover stories that are separated by a yellow rectangular piece of graphic are written in a bold, white font to stand out. Contrary to this: the date line, price, issue no. and website address that appear above the masthead are faded and very hard to see, as this is not a crucial convention in the magazine cover. Contrary to many magazines, despite this photograph’s bold, resounding appeal, the model (Lil Wayne) is not directly facing the audience, but I suppose this could intrigue audience. This photograph also acts as anchorage to the cover story, as it is all under the same topic/subject.
This magazine cover, despite the elicit style and colourful approach the designers have taken, is actually quite simplistic and is not too complex, and has a more organic aesthetic quality. A convention that conveys the magazine’s prestige and reputation is the cover line placed above the masthead in the top right-hand corner that states ‘The Bush Crimes – Inside the interior dept.’. This shows how recognisable the brand is and how established they are amongst audiences. Rolling Stone magazine’s design appeals to me personally and I think it’s a very simplistic yet elegant magazine cover. I like the simple yet well-communicated information, and I especially like the bold and italic masthead. I will take all of these positive aspects into the production of my own magazine.
Analysis of Rolling Stone Contents Page
Rolling Stone Magazine
Rolling Stone magazine features a vertical separation between images and body copy, with all of the featured imagery portraying different topics/subjects, which represent and appeals to the magazine’s wide demographic. The magazine’s main focus towards music is shown as two photographs are of music artists (MCR & Bruno Mars) and the bottom photograph is of Barack Obama (as the magazine traditionally contains political articles). On the right-hand side of the page, the contents are separated into ‘features’, ‘national affairs’ and ‘departments’. The dominant section is ‘features’ which would contain articles that appeal to a broader audience, and the ‘national affairs’ will be articles on american politics and the ‘departments’ are separated into subcategories which are ‘rock & roll’ and ‘reviews’ – and readers always love reviews. Each section of the contents page is separated by measures that are red, which abides to the recurrent colour scheme of the rest of the page. The titles of each section of the contents page are written in the red lettering, the same as the page references next to the article titles. The ‘contents’ title is placed in the centre of the splash inside a red rectangle and’s written in white lettering. This red rectangle features a date line and the magazine title below the word ‘contents’.
A small list features just below the review title about Kanye West’s new album ‘Dark Twisted Fantasy’ that gives page references in smaller, more insignificant writing about the less prominent topics in the magazine, films being one of them. This features in the magazine to appeal to a broader demographic and will give readers an insight to ALL aspects of society. Below this list, anchorage that refers to the front cover’s image informs the readers of the photographer and date on which the photograph was taken. This gives aspiring photographers or graphic designers the opportunity to research the photographer if the photo appeals to them. Below this reference, by-lines are apparent that show the designers and directors of the page for any design enthusiasts – so the magazine isn’t just for reading, it’s for admiring.
Rolling Stone Double Page Spread (DPS)
The immediate attraction point of this DPS is the sexually-orientated image on the right of Katy Perry, which is much more prominent than the seemingly blander body copy on the opposing page. The photograph is contrarily colourful in comparison to the body copy, which is in a neutral black and white theme. The centre of the splash on the body copy (main text) features the subject of the interview so it is a title almost, and this ‘title’ also features a pull quote taken verbatim from Katy Perry. The quote I am referring to is “I took mushrooms at a daft punk show” and “I had to throw myself into a shower fully clothed afterward”. This briefly teases the audience with the content of the article, and intrigues and enthuses them to read further. A drop-cap is seen just below this title which conveys that it’s a new paragraph, and the ‘A’ is in the same dark grey lettering as the main text body.
Double page spreads consist of much less that contents pages or front covers, but this is because there is a lot less information that needs to be conveyed. This DPS is only one story that needs portraying through words and images, so less images and more, but detailed, words are required to make this DPS successful. My favourite features of this DPS are the simplicity in the design, as it’s only three columns of small, traditional-styled text, with graphics atop the article that enclose the name ‘Katy Perry’ in a faint box to the left. Another component of this magazine that I think works well is the pastel-like colour of the photograph, and by pastel-like I mean not too saturated. This works well with the simple text-embodied page that opposes it, as neither page is too overwhelming or too bland.
I hope to borrow mostly from this DPS as it stands above the ones that I have studied so far. I cannot complain about this double page spread and its elegant simplicity stands far above the quality of the other magazines I have looked at. My magazine will not be a complex and highly concentrated magazine like NME or Vibe, but will be simplistic like Rolling Stone.
Shaun's Media Portfolio 