Magazine Analysis: Empire

Empire is a British company that publishes magazines each month about films. It is the biggest selling film magazine in the United Kingdom and is also published in the United States, Portugal, Turkey, Russia, and Italy. Each month it looks into multiple films and some film festivals. They have a logan just under the masthead stating that it's "The world's biggest movie magazine" which is a very broad claim.

The image on the left is the front cover of the magazine. This is the first thing the audience will see when they look at the magazine. It is very important that the magazine stands out to the audience and grabs their attention early on. The title font for Empire is bright white which strongly contrasts the image and background to the front cover. The image used of Daniel Craig as James Bond is very enlarged, showing a close up of his face. the image covers over half of the front cover, and does not include all of his face. On the left are puffs, showing the audience what features in the magazine. This particular magazine shows spectre in great detail, behind the scenes to Jurassic World, Fantastic 4, a look into Fast & Furious 7, the British version of Evil Dead and a special on the Sundance Film Festival. Along the bottom are three famous actors who all have a segment in the magazine. At the top of the magazine is a TV preview to the biggest shows in 2015. The front cover of the magazine shows off what is inside with the most interesting elements bigger to attract the audience to read the magazine.

The font used for the magazine cover is large and bold so it grabs the audiences attention. In a world with 30 different magazines on a single stand all bunched up together, it is important that it is easy to recognise the magazine and for it to stand out amongst the other magazines. Every Empire magazine has the 'EMPIRE' across the top, covering the whole width of the cover. This is important as it makes the magazine easy to recognise. On some magazines, the image on the front cover will go in front of the 'P' but it's still clear that it says 'EMPIRE'.

The magazine cover is dominated by the main central image of Daniel Craig as James Bond. The image is highly zoomed in which allows the image to be placed in the top right hand corner of the magazine cover. This makes the image look very clean and professional. Daniel Craig is holding a pistol in front of his face which represents the film as a whole with its stereotypes. This helps the audience to associate Daniel Craig to James Bond instantly. The gun also reaches out to the male mainstream audience as guns are stereotypically masculine. This goes hand in hand with the readership statistics, as the majority of the readers are male (548,000 males opposed to 187,000 females). 

The lettering on the left alternates colours each line so each line is distinguishable from one another. This is important as some articles may appeal more to certain audience members than other articles do. For example, Fast & Furious 7 may appeal to lots more of people than the British remake of Evil Dead. By being different colours, Fast & Furious 7 can stand out and be seen as separate. The main article of the magazine is in larger font and is located at the top of the list. 'SPECTRE' stands out to the audience and is likely to be the first thing they see. Magazines need to grab the audiences attention on the front cover so they purchase it, so they will have the magazine focus on what is likely to be the most popular articles, in the case it's "the worlds first look at spectre".