Sketches

After creating my masthead and figuring out how I wanted my cover to look like, I created some preliminary sketches that kind of helped me visualize how it would look coming all together.

Bare in mind, I am not artistic in the slightest!!! 

Cover Sketch

Here I presented how I'd want my ideal cover to look like. Now obviously it doesn't look the best, but it does keep that minimalist and modern design that I want to go for. How I envision it is I want my main dish (which is going to be the one in the pan) to be the only thing in focus. With my two other dishes slightly out of focus but still visible to where you can see the colors. I think to the viewer, that will look so appealing and make that specific dish look 10 times more appetizing.

Double Page Sketch

This is how I'd want my double page spread to look like. On the top center, is going to be my dish that is being presented, then I have the name of the dish in the top left with the recipe of it right underneath in a rounded text box. Then I have some decoration designs by placing some things through the shot or maybe I'll add them in via Adobe Indesign. 

Table of Contents Sketch

This is the one where I am most stumped, what I have so far is putting it as a double page spread, with the image on the left right under the title of it being labeled "Content." But other than that, I don't really know what else I want to do. I'm going to do more research so I can get a better grasp of how I want my table of contents to look.

Food Props & Presentation

 Usually on food magazine covers, what is normally shown is a single large dish that is usually front and center of the cover. For example, 

- We see the food at large here dominating and commanding your attention towards it rather than immediately looking at the text

Link for Image:

https://fontsinuse.com/uses/21698/food-magazine

Now this is something that I won't be doing, I want my to appear different from other conventional magazines. Instead I want to have multiple dishes on the cover like this;

What I really love from this image is the fact that the blurriness and out of focus shot of the dishes in the background really tells and shows how dominant the main dish is. But what this magazine did was have the same dish repeated on the cover, what I want to do is have one dish front and center, but then have two separate dishes in the background that are out of focus. 

Link for Image:

https://fontsinuse.com/uses/21698/food-magazine

Things that I can do to make it look more presentable and worthy for my cover image is make sure the presentation of the dish is very appealing. What I plan on doing is having my "main dish" front and center obviously, but keep it in the pan due to the fact that it looks better there than when it is being served. I could also add some things to compliment it like some silverware utensils on the cover or maybe a glass of wine or a beverage of some sort.

Models

Models

For my genre (food magazines), the most conventional food varies from what your niche is. For example, if you were viewing a "Southern food" magazine, you'd see common southern dishes like fried chicken or barbecues but mainly foods that are deeply rooted or connected to that region. But for my magazine, since I'm not doing a niche that has to do with a geographical location, my food models wouldn't really emotionally attach the viewer like other magazines would. But besides that, my food models would probably be high protein, low calories food. You would probably see a lot of pasta like foods or foods that either have chicken or beef in it. Which is what I have decided to do.

For the models (food) for my magazine cover, I've decided three dishes. 

Dish #1

Creamy Garlic Potatoes

Created by Tiktok User: Panacea Palm

Why this dish?

I chose this dish because looking at the macronutrients, it was very low in calories compared to other dishes that are frequently ate and it also has a very high density of protein for the serving size. Also thinking about how my magazine if more meal prepping orientated, I figured a common problem people had while meal prepping was that their food wouldn't taste as good if they microwave vs. eating them fresh. So taking this into consideration, reheating foods like potatoes and ground beef will still taste good after being microwaved.

Dish #2

Honey Barbecue Chicken & Mac n' Cheese

Created by Tiktok User: Aussiefitness

Why this dish?

I chose this dish mainly due to the fact that it looks amazing. Putting this on the cover to me is a essential because of how good it looked. So hopefully in recreating this, I'll do just as good of a job and make the presentations aspect of it pull in potential viewers and be the reason why they decide to read my magazine.

Dish #3

Fiesta Beef Bowl

Created by TikTok User: hunt4shredz

Why this dish?

I chose this dish because I honestly have tried this recipe before and it taste fantastic. And also, visually again for my cover, the sauce that is going to be drizzled on top of the dish to me looks so savory and tasteful. So just like the Mac n' Cheese, this dish would be strictly for eye appealing purposes. 

Content research

 Content research

For this Blog today, I will be going over the field research I did in figuring out exactly what my target audience would want. I asked them various questions on what they would want to see on a food magazine.

For my first question, I asked about magazine title opinions. I provided 4 options and the one in demand was Home Plate. And for me, I really like this, I feel as if it goes along with the healthy vibe since its a sports reference. 

Question 2 had to do with the background of the cover page. I provided 2 options, either a kitchen setting or a solid color background. And overwhelmingly, the kitchen setting won. I was fine with this because honestly I was okay with either being chosen I had already had ideas for both just in case.

Question 3 was about the cover image. It specifically asked whether the viewers would prefer multiple dishes or a singular dish on the cover, and this is the first one I decided to go against. I kind of already have a idea in plan for what i'm going to do which contradicts what the people picked.

Question 4 asked about font styles and this one was a lot closer but since I had made my masthead already, I don't see myself using a bolder font for it. But, I do see myself potentially putting bold captions on the cover page to grab the reader attention to something else. So I won't completely throw the idea away.

Question 5 asked whether they wanted a minimalist or busy style of content and whether they wanted a more modern look or outdoors look to the cover images. And the two that won were modern and Minimalist which is perfect. This is the exact theme and style that I see across magazines that I adore and want to implement into mine.

Question 6 asked about editorials to include, and Product reviews won this one. Which for me is okay, I personally wanted to do food trends but honestly my second pick would've been product reviews as we see a lot of that in food magazines and this would be more helpful to the viewer. 

Question 7 asked about potential brand advertisements. And Whole foods took the top spot with trader joe's coming in second. This is perfect for my niche as since im doing Healthy meal prepping foods, this goes hand and hand with whole foods as they whole thing is that they only sell fresh non-preservative foods.

Question 8 asked about the age range of the viewer and to no surprise, the ages 28-35 was chosen most frequently. Showing that I'll have to cater my magazine to a more mature audience.

Question 9 asked about economic classes and by a large margin the middle class won. So this wont hinder me when making recipes all it will do is keep me from going all out on crazy expensive recipes.

Question 10 asked whether the viewer considered themselves a healthy eater, and this was split 50/50. And this fits well with my audience demographic cause a lot of these viewers could be trying to get into shape hence why they would be reading food magazine articles. or the other half would be in shape already trying to maintain that physique.

Masthead Creation

 Masthead

For the creation of my masthead, I was looking through my genre and envisioning other magazines mastheads, to get a idea of what I wanted mine to be. My initial thoughts were something of a minimalist format, something that looked clean and professional, and color wise I wanted it to be white. Due to the fact that I planned on having a solid color background and I feel like it would make the magazine look better. But the more I look at masthead ideas and see cover examples, I get pushed more towards a natural kitchen background rather than a solid color one. But we'll figure that out when the time comes.

Here are some examples I really enjoyed when picking mastheads:

 Design

What drew me to this masthead immediately was the top right of the page where we see the word "Food," but right above they sneak in "woman & home" right above the "O's" and I thought that was brilliant. So this is for sure something that I would want to implement in my magazine.

Link for picture - https://us.readly.com/products/magazine/woman-och-home-feel-good-food-magazine

Color

What I want to take form this masthead is the colors that they chose. Not only with the masthead, but I love the fact that it goes along with the colors we see in the dish. We see that sky blue color on the napkin in the picture and then we also see that same color in the font to contrast from the darker blue color we see. And what also makes the cover page so unique and nice is the fact that everything on it correlates with blue. As we also see what I assume to be blueberry pie as the main dish.

Link for picture - https://food52.com/story/8134-the-11-indie-food-mags-you-should-be-reading

Font

For me, I feel like since I'm using a funny/witty magazine name, I cant really use a cursive font or a bold font design. So for me, I'd prefer to keep the font thin and semi - formal. I also really like how they didn't separate the words with a space. I feel like that would look good for mine too. The font type that I would want to use that is similar to this one is called Playfair Display. And the colors that I'm potentially using it a brighter color scaling between Orange to White.

How Playfair Display Looks:

Rough Draft

Here is a rough draft that I created in canva of my ideal Masthead.

Closer Image of masthead

Audience Profile

 Audience Profile

Here, I went into detail about the specific target demographics that my magazine has.

Race / Ethnicity

Gender

Income

Age

https://www.canva.com/design/DAHBqyMn3h4/d2jeU6Ax-BapGCpiZACfjg/view?utm_content=DAHBqyMn3h4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=hc4a1e858cc

Double-Page Spread Analysis

Pg. 6-7 delish High Protein

Content

This article focuses more on easy and practical instructions rather than the storytelling format of it. The structure reads top to bottom from the headline all the way to the chefs name at the bottom. We see a numbered format to make reading the instructions in a step by step process easy for the reader. The tone is very instructional, what I mean is it is straight to the point and doesn't really focus on the personality aspect.

Design & Production

The layout consist of the imagery of the recipe in the background layered behind the recipe in the white text box. We see a clean font consistent throughout both pages. We also see some things in bold which establish that hierarchy of importance on the recipe. We see a lot of warmer colors chosen on the imagery to enhance the hunger feeling. The images seen on the pages are very large as they take up the entire spread. Throughout the pages, I notice that the visuals outweigh the text by a lot. The whole page is covered by the imagery of food whereas only a small portion of the page is of actual text.

Some conventions that I will use from this double page spread is the way it is designed. For example, I love how there is barely any whitespace on the pages. A convention I could see myself straying away from is another design feature and that would be having the recipe cover the image. Instead, I would maybe have different angle shots of the same food plastered all over the page and give the recipe it's own space so that it isn't interfering with the food.

Table Of Contents Analysis

 

Overview

A table of contents is a page at the beginning of a magazine that shows articles in the magazine and feature stories along with the page number that corresponds with them. It helps readers navigate through the magazine without getting lost. It enhances the reading experience and keeps the reader's attention for longer.

It can show the scope of the entire magazine in just a few pages. The table of contents can do this by displaying topics, articles, feature stories and showing the hierarchy of things in the magazine. For example, you may see a section called "Easy Recipes" first, and then under you'll see a subsection or articles with the recipe in it. Essentially, it emphasizes the priorities and the content that is shown to the audience.

My magazine will be around 85-95 pages

Real Simple Magazine

Layout & Structure

- Multiple. columns that separates each departments and makes navigating the table of contents easier.

Fonts & Typography

- Bold headings and smaller subsections to establish the hierarchy between the departments and the articles.

Use of Color & Whitespace

-Very minimal colors on the table of contents. Uses warm colors on the images.

Image Placement & Hierarchy

- Images are placed in the left side of the page to grab attention to features stories that the images represent. 

- Uses simple headlines "What to Cook" "How We live" "How to do things" etc... A lot of the terminology they use is informal, but it does fit with the magazine due to it feeling comfortable and approachable. There is 5 departments listed. "Stuff we love", "How to do things", "How we live", "what to cook", "on the cover". The content emphasizes quick content and includes a lot of short reads, ideas, and tips to help the reader. They due include feature stories, but they do not take away from the lifestyle brand.

Taste Of The South Magazine

Layout & Structure

- Uses a grid like format that distinguishes the feature content (represented in the images) from the other departments.

Fonts & Typography

- Larger headings to convey hierarchy to specific articles (feature stories). While other smaller fonts show the "less important" articles on the hierarchy scale. But still maintains that readability and visibility.

Use of Color & Whitespace

- Soft colors which help repeat that feeling of "comfort food" that the cover page establishes. We see white space between images and around the text to keep that clean look.

Image Placement & Hierarchy

Large pictures in the center of the page to establiush that dominance and grab the attention from the viewer. The shows smaller images underneath to represent secondary content on this image hierarchy scale.

The headings and headline uses friendly and conversational language. For instance, we see the "Chip, CHip, Hooray!" This isn't the conventional formal tone that we usually see throughout a lot of magazine which gives the readers that welcoming and conversational tone. Looking through, we can count a total of 11 departments listed and 4 feature stories listed that are clearly stated in the picture. This magazine emphasizes quick, repeatable content rather than that deep storytelling format. Which I am starting to recognize we rarely see this form of emphasization in food magazines.

delish High Protein Magazine

Layout & Structure

- we a layout where the table of context is split in half. Where we see all fo ther info on the right hand side of the right page, and on the left hand side of the right page, we also see a quarter of the image whereas the rest of it is shown on the left page.

Fonts & Typography

- we see a bold headline at the top "Cook This Issue" and much smaller body text underneath which pushes the reader to read much faster compared to the other articles.

Use of Color & Whitespace

- Whitespace is rarely used as we see the only white space in the text on the bottom left

Image Placement & Hierarchy

- A very large photo that takes up the entire page which may push towards the theme and formatting of this magazine as now we see two pages (cover and this one) that are entirely covered by food images. 

The language that we see in headlines are very energetic and gym focused. ("Rise & Grind", "Fuel Up", "Power Plates") And we see 7 departments listed and no feature stories listed on the cover. This magazine focus a lot on short form, repeatable content rather than that deep storytelling.

Analysis of All 3 Magazines

Common conventions that I've noticed across all three is that they all use short form content rather than that deep storytelling. And this is something I plan to challenge. I want my magazine to have deep story telling throughout the pages. Meaning I plan to do deep research about the dishes I'm creating and make sure to inform the reader of the historic background of the dishes. A convention I want to emulate is the the food heavy content on the table of contents. For instance, I really enjoy the second table of contents where we see more food than white space.

Preliminary Research - Food Magazine

Taste Of The South (Jan 2026)

Food Magazine

Location: Publix

Cover Analysis

1. 1.On the cover, the first thing that catches our attention is the big dish all over the page. We can tell that this is a desert of some sort and this appeals to the reader in many ways. After doing extensive research, the item on the cover "Bananas Foster Poke Cake," is a classic New Orleans desert. So in emphasizing this in the magazine, especially on the cover, it immediately shows the authenticity that the publishers have and the knowledge they have in the heritage of Southern Culinary.
2. The photographers and publishers decided to use a extreme close up shot of the dish. In doing this, we can experience the food first hand, almost like were at the table eating the dish. All the text are put around the image and not over it, this could signify that the food, not the headlines, is the main attraction and selling point of magazine.
3. The placement of the font is in the top center of the page, which is very typical in many magazines, across all genres. The visibility of the masthead is very clear. Mainly due to the red color that contrast the rest of the cover, but also because the size of the text is dominant over anything else on the page. What also makes it very visible is the fact that the masthead isn't being overlapped by the image in the background.
4. The colors that dominate the cover is easily the bright red of the masthead, and then the natural colors of the food and lighting in the background image. Presumably the yellow of the dish. The mood that the colors suggest creates that warm and welcoming vibe, due to the fact that on the cover of that magazine, it's very calm. There's not too much going on and all of your focus goes on the background meal which presents to you that's warm cozy feel of a winter time desert.
5. Something else that you would notice is the bright red title that reads, "Taste of the South." We could assume they use the red color for many reasons. One such as that many food media forms often use warm colors to signify taste and freshness. Also, after doing more research I've learned that the color red psychologically, represents hunger and the crave feeling.
6. The cover is very minimal. Theres not much going on compared to magazines we've seen previously and the ones you're going to see later. It's very minimal with barely any text going on. And even if there is, they are positioned in a way to where your attention is still drawn on the food. This appeals to the audience because majority of the viewers of taste of the south want a simple and approachable feel to their magazines rather than some corporate commercialized magazine design.
7. The tagline "Authentically Southern, Always Delicious" is positioned right under the masthead. Which reinforces the brand identity that taste of the south is going for which is that traditional and reliable southern recipes. Other than that, other practical information, like the price, publishing date, and barcode all remain small and minimal so that the food remains dominant.

My Final Reflection

I really enjoyed the way this magazine cover looked. Personally one of my favorites out of the ones I've seen, the three things that I would borrow from it would be;

1. The minimal design

2. The design and placement of the masthead

3. The colors that the focused on

And a design choice that I would stay away from that this magazine offered was putting the barcode on the cover page. 

Cover Analysis

Real Simple (Nov 2025)

Food Magazine

Location: Publix

1. On the cover we see a plethora of meals on the cover unlike the previous magazine. This appeals to the audience because of the fact that this magazine was made for a specific amount of meals. For instance, we see on the title that it says "10 Sides with main dish energy." So on the cover, we see the amount of dishes that are going to be present in the article and specifically what type of dishes they are (side dishes). So that is the reason for the title being exactly the way it is. Hence appealing to the audience in a way that lets them know exactly what they are getting into.
2. This shot of the photo is a lot different from the first magazine. In this photo, we get a wider view of the entire table, so we are able to see a variety of meals instead of just one. The subject is positions all over the page with food ont he very bottom, the left side, the right side, everywhere except for the top.
3. The top of the page is the only part where the food isn't dominant. That's exactly where the masthead is. Now on this magazine, the masthead is not that visible, with it having a darker color which kind of blends in with the one of the background. And the masthead is not overlapped by the image maybe due to the fact that they want the brand to stick out from the food.
4. The colors that dominate the cover are the green of the masthead and the white of the table. Really because of the fact that they are the main colors that stick out and the colors that capture your attention immediately. The green suggest a calm natural mood. The color green is associated with freshness and good health so using this as the masthead cover gives off that feeling that you're going to eat a healthy, fresh meal.
5. The font give us a casual but professional tone. This is because the letters are very simple and theres not a lot of cleverness throughout the whole cover. 
6. The cover is very minimal. This suits the target audience because this goes along with the mood and tone of professionalism and freshness. I say professionalism because the cover is very clean and clear, you see a lot on the page, but it's not overwhelming and overbearing to the point where you don't know what you are looking at.
7. The tagline "Life Made Easier" is seen right under the masthead. Which reinforced that brand recognition of "simple" that the masthead says. Other than that, other practical information, like the price, publishing date, and barcode all remain small and minimal so that the food remains dominant.

My Final Reflection

I really enjoyed the way this magazine cover looked. Personally one of my favorites out of the ones I've seen, the three things that I would borrow from it would be;

1. The multiple dishes on the cover

2. Placement of the masthead

3. The minimal design

And a design choice that I would stay away from that this magazine offered was putting the barcode on the cover page. 

Cover Analysis

delish (Jan 13, 2026)

Food Magazine

Location: Publix

1. The cover shows a grid like pattern of "High Protein" meals that the reader could make. This shows a variety of them rather than one just like the previous magazine. And in doing this, it gives a lot of different options for practical, healthy options for everyday eating.
2. The image uses close up shots for all the entrée's with good lighting for every food.
3. The masthead is very bold and is placed on the top and centered like every other masthed that we have previously seen. It's not overlapped by anything because I believe the publishers want the brand to stand out from the food.
4. We see blue font in the top and a lot of white as the background color. These colors dominate the cover along with the natural food colors that we see all over the grid. These colors give off a clean and health focused mood.
5. The large letters "HIGH PROTEIN" feel very casual and not formal or luxurious. This communicates to the reader, preferably a younger audience as an approachable "fun" cooking tone.
6. The cover is very busy due to the grid like structure at the bottom. This suits the genre because we see at the top, "80 Dinners, Snacks, Deserts, +Mor" at the top to show that there is going to be a lot in this magazine. So it's not that far fetched that we see a lot going on on the cover as well. 
7. Other practical information, like the price, publishing date, and barcode all remain small and minimal so that the food remains dominant.

My Final Reflection

I really enjoyed the way this magazine cover looked. Personally one of my favorites out of the ones I've seen, the three things that I would borrow from it would be;

1. The minimal text

2. The plethora of food on the cover

3. Bold font

And I know I sound like a broken record... but, the design choice that I would stay away from that this magazine offered was putting the barcode on the cover page. 

Research / First Blog

     Hello, my name is Anthony Lowe and I am a senior at Coral Springs Charter School. When introduced to the magazine project, my mind was drawn to two topics specifically. Either a sports magazine - targeting basketball- or a cooking/food magazine. Mainly because I've drawn attraction to these two types of magazines in my life specifically. I love cooking food and find a hobby in that, but I also do love to play sports and play basketball with my friends.

    So it was a tough choice deciding which one I wanted my Cambridge grade to rely on. But after some heavy research and a lot of thinking, I came to the conclusion that I wanted my magazine to be a cook-book type of magazine specialized in helping people make meal prepping food. 

    Now for this magazine, the majority target audience would probably be people who are heavily influenced by fitness or people who care about their health and the things they eat. A marginal target audience could be people who are in the lower class financially wise but also care about their health and the things they put in their body. Some other people that our magazine would target is potentially mothers or wives who may pack food for others and not just themselves as they may use this as a guide to help them through their week to week life.

    Typically, the average cooking book magazine or food magazine consists of:

• Recipes
• Chef Profiles
• Travel & Culture foods
• Kitchen tool recommendation
• Reviews of kitchenware shown
• Nutritional facts about the foods that are presented

Some adds that we may see are:

• From big food brands (Campbell's, Kraft, etc.)
• Kitchen tools & Appliances

When wandering down the aisle at your local store, you would typically see celebrities featured on cook books or see them throughout the book. This is because as of recently, more and more of these A-list celebrities are using cookbooks to reach out to their audiences or connect to a larger market of potential fanbases. 

Usually when viewing cover imagery, we see these mouth watering attention catching types of food plastered onto the whole page. For example:

•Cooking Light Brain Foods Magazine Spring 2025 81 Mind-Boosting Recipes: Cooking Recipes: Amazon.com: Books

•The New Mexico Magazine Centennial Cookbook: A Century of Flavors [Book]

•The All-New Complete Cooking Light Cookboook: The Ultimate Guide from America's #1 Food Magazine: Editors of Cooking Light Magazine: 9780848730239: Amazon.com: Books

Magazines are designed typically to catch your eye immediately. And how they do this:

• They'll pick a "mouth watering" type of entrée on the cover. Typically very large and takes up majority of the space
• Capitalized words on the cover (attention grabbing)
• Bold letters (attention grabbing)

On the layouts of the pages, you would see;

• A large picture of the meal being cooked
• A large bold title of the name of the food
• And text of the recipe typically made in smaller paragraph or bullet point style

The photography usually consist of;

• A close up shot of the meal
• Usually stationed on a counter top or on a solid color background

• https://brandpacks.com/templates/food-cookbook-magazine-template/

Even though this is a template of a cookbook magazine, it represents how the vast majority of these magazines look like. For example we see the;

• The entrée being presented on a solid color background
• Big bold letters on the cover which are used to grab attention
• The recipe pages being depicted with a large image of the meal, and that short paragraph style to present the recipe

Food magazines are marketed in a variety of ways. We see them distributed physically most commonly in supermarkets. Whereas some other places where we could see print distribution being sold are newstands, food retail stores, subscription mail delivery. But as technology developed more and more, we saw less of newsstands and subscription mail delivery and saw more of online subscription to magazine publisher editorials because of the birth and rise of the internet. Major chains stores like Barnes & Noble are one of the most popular distributors of food magazines because of the wide variety of magazines that they have to offer in store.

One of the most known form of promotion for food magazines are social media advertisements where you'll see a creator post a meal and then promote their cookbook or food magazine towards the end of their video. With a hashtag like "#HolidayCooking" or "#RecipeOfTheWeek." This would also be the most successful as many chefs can reach completely different audiences through social media growing the genre and their personal brand.

The main demographic of people being targeted are Adults around the ages of 30s to 60s who regularly cook at home, middle class or higher income households that has expendables income that they can use on experimenting and trying new recipes. Mainly because they are the generation that still may rely on print magazine and also this would be the age group that finds a passion or "necessity" in using a food magazine to assist them in throughout their lives. 

This demographic of individuals are communicated too by using language that is more adult oriented and presents itself in advertisements that assume that the readers is knowledgeable and actually cares about cooking. Also many of the "lifestyle" themed cookbooks show that they are targeted towards the older population due to the fact that many teens or younger adults (college students) don't really care much for "lifestyle cooking."

Analysis of a Food Magazine Cover

• Very bold and large title "HEALTHY" in all caps
• food entrée as the centerpiece of cover
• solid color background so all your attention is on the food and titles
• A lot of writing
• celebrity mentioned on cover to grab the reader's curiosity
• Many subtitles to list what will be expected in the magazine
• Representation
• People involved in fitness who care for their health
• the lower/middle class who may not have the finances to make a lot of high end meals. Hence the "Budget 7 - day diet plan"

This magazine cover that I chose reinforces genre conventions that I discovered but also introduced me to some new ones that I am starting to notice. What this magazine reinforces is that the cover of food magazines are mainly used to grab your attention and get you to open it and read more, just like many other forms of media do. But what it introduces me to that I didn't notice at first was the fact that magazine covers are filled to the brim with information. As you can see, there is barely any white space at all on the cover as the whole thing is covered with either pictures or information about what's to be expected in the magazine.

https://pocketmags.com/us/good-food-home-cooking-series-magazine/healthy-winter-2023?srsltid=AfmBOooZOIAL4-XRjipey_XRIqlpXRazND4NWgnr_6ojbZrMU6KQGz4R (picture)

Analysis #2

• Half of the title is bold while the other half isn't
• Food as the main attraction of the cover
• we see the cookies very large with nothing else in the picture
• On this one we see an advertisement on the cover
• Abundance of writing on the cover
• No celebrity mentioned on cover
• Representation
• Men who are into cooking or health (top right we see "Men's Health Special")
• People who are also into heavy baking (the cover picture is cookies on a baking tray and then we also see "the best chocolate cake you will ever make" on the side.)

What we see on this magazine cover also reinforces the genre conventions that I've learned but was fairly different from the one I covered before. For this one, we see that half the title is in bold font while the other half isn't. I can infer that maybe they want your attention on the "good" part first so that then you'll read the other half. It's almost like they want to overly emphasize the "good" so that you think that you will read some recipes that are worth your time. How this challenges genre conventions that I've learned is that I didn't expect to see and advertisement on the cover. Where they say "Win a home improvement bundle worth $750 with crown, see page 24 for more details" (circle on right side). This magazine does this and promotes the brand Crown Paints on the cover which was unexpected because looking at other magazines, we do see promotions and advertisements in them on the actual pages of the magazine, but I have yet to see one with an advertisement on the cover page until this one.

https://www.amazon.com/BBC-Good-Food-Magazine/dp/B01FGEOJMY (picture)

Food Magazine Analysis

1. 

Genre Convention: A large dominant picture of the entrée that is well lit and professionally shot. This holds meaning because of the fact that the picture on the cover is the reason people read your magazine. Its what gets them hooked in and what makes them pick it up off shelves. So having a good photo like this one does just that.

2. 

Genre Convention: This magazine cover mentions a celebrity on the cover (Gail Simmons) to help draw in viewers to read further. And this does that, many viewers who are actually into cooking would love to read further based on the fact that they see this celebrity chef mentioned on the cover.

 

3. 

Genre Convention: The font color for the text differentiate a lot from the actual picture. It's like the authors did this purposefully so that you would be drawn to read the words that they have written.

4.

Genre Convention: What I noticed for this was that unlike all the other covers, this one takes a very minimalist approach and doesn't have as much texts on the cover as the others do.

5.

Genre Convention: This one is very feminine like and would appear more to the female audience. And yes this genre convention successfully does this because of the fact that the cover is pink, the font is pink and purple, and it's mainly about baking (All feminine things).

Representation

• Males and females, but mainly females due to the fact that in majority households, we see the female doing the cooking. So many magazines will cater more to that audience rather than the male audience
• These magazines usually represent people of older age. Around there mid 30s to upper 60s. Mainly due to the fact they expect their average reader to be around that age. In my magazine above, they use a celebrity named Gail Simmons to help grab the attention of the reader. But to me, and probably majority of the teen and younger population, I had no clue who Gail Simmons was. Come to find out, she was a top chef on a british T.V show in the early 2000s. So this shows that like, even the celebrities that they use to market their products, are of the older generations to appeal to that older audience.
• All social classes are really represented throughout food magazines. Like how I showed before, they cater to all classes like how some have "budget friendly meals."

My Research

Search Terms That I Used

• "Food Magazine"
• "Gail Simmons"
• "Food Magazine Cover"

Sources That I Rejected

Questions That I Still Have

Why do magazines plant so much information on the cover? I plan to research this by finding out more reasons on why they plaster so much information on the front of the magazine.