Analysis of Vibe

Denotation

The magazine front cover consists of a black and white photograph of a man with his body to a slight angle and face looking to the side of the camera. Almost as if he is looking away from the camera not directly to it. It is a medium shot showing his head shoulders, waist and a quarter of his legs. Directly behind the males head is vibe’s masthead which is in bright red, on the right hand side of him is 5 cover lines in black and another block of writing with celebrities names featuring. On the left hand side of him is another block of writing in white. The background of the photograph is half black and half white. The background is the exact same layout and colour as the background of the filmposter "scarface". In the left hand corner there is a barcode.

Masthead

Vibe’s masthead is very bold as it is in bright red. It uses a non serif font, there is a space after each letter making the masthead stand out. The V I and B are all capital letters to stand out where as the e is a lowercase letter.On top of the masthead is 3 words also in red, this is showing what the issue is based on as this is special edition.

Character

The cover photograph is of the well known artist ’50 cent’ dressed and posed like the faous "scarface"

 Composition

He is posed in a very stern position with his body at an angle. His arms hanging down beside him. His body lnguage and face suggests that he could be of high importance or with a "gangsta" look on his face.

 Costume

His clothing his a white suit both trousers and blazer with a black shirt underneath. The blazer is button up with shirt unbuttoned slightly, he is wearing a chain with a cross on it around his neck. His serious facial expressio completes the look giving us the impression that we are meant to be intimidated and he means business. This costume has been chosen carefully to match the same costume that "toni montana" is wearing on the front cover of the famous film scarface. His costume fits in with the theme of the poster introuducing who 50 cent suppose to be.
His nvc also matches with the idea of scarface showing he is a gangster.
The lighting is lowkey, but bright around his face so the audience can capture his stern , serious look.
There is no setting at all as it is just a colour background with no props. However the plain background fits in with the theme, leaving it mysterious.

Cover-lines:
The main cover line that relates to the photograph says "Starring 50cent as Scarface". This is linked to the theme of the magazine for this issue. The different coverlines tell us that this magazine isn't just about music as one of the cover lines says "Plus the other 49 movies that changed hip hop". This also shows us that they chose 50 cent purposly, as they were going though 50 movies that changed this specific genre of music. With these coverlines we can see what type of music the issue is going to be about. The big coverlines are about artists such as John legend, Tweet and status quo. There is a little paragraph of writing that says co starring lil wane,Meagon good,The game, idris ebra and wood harris. This is done well as it is set out like the film poster 'Scarface' by putting co-starring this shows us who else is featured in the magazine.

Target Audience
Looking back at the evaluation for each section, the target audience is probally males and female aged 16 and above. Also Target audience is likely to be people who like hip hop and r&b gene music. I would say that it would be aimed at african americans.