Magazine Cover Review

     Going through the magazines this week really gave me insight as to how important of an impact the cover and feature article of a magazine really are. One thing I noticed in every cover was that they all had a large image that took up the whole page on the cover. This makes sense because obviously readers aren't going to be captivated to a magazine if they can't see what's on the cover. Magazines ranging from "Better Homes and Garden" to  "Motor Trend" would have large clear images of food and cars. Another detail I noticed was the colors in the cover showed how the feeling for the magazine would be. Some covers like Travis Scott on "GQ" included bright colors which would lead into the upbeat feature. While others had muted colors like the cover of "Vogue" gave off a more serious vibe. The second article we read better explains how viewers today have such a low attention span that magazines have an obligation to be captivating. As stated in paragraph 10,  "Most magazines now resemble movie posters more closely than they do the dry pages of a book. They are filled with color, oversized headlines, graphics, photos, and pull quotes." This implies that readers now want something flashy which magazine editors take into consideration when making a cover that draws you in. 

    Feature articles ranged from magazine to magazine but for the most part they were around 3-5 pages long. Most of the feature articles were about whoever was on thew cover like Joey King on "Cosmopolitan." However, some magazines such as "Sports Illustrated" didn't have a feature article at all but rather small paragraphs or snippets of information spread throughout. Either way, most feature articles were filled with pictures which I think made the articles seem easier to read. Readers now don't want to read long lengthy articles as we can tell when the article mentions, "The magazine-reading future, in other words, will be bite-sized. The narrative will surrender to the newsflash. Image will subsume the written word." Taking this into consideration we can see that this has changed how feature articles are presented now. They're often filled with images that make the text seem like there's less to read and kept to around 3-5 pages long. The cover image and feature article are like the bones of a magazine, supporting everything else and being the main focus of how well it does.