The VIBE magazine cover uses bright contrasting colors to catch readers' attention, featuring an interview with Kanye West taking up the center. It employs Guttenberg's theories well with an eye-catching headline area and strong secondary story boxes. In contrast, the ROLLING STONE cover has a more muted, traditional design befitting its focus on older genres. It draws readers' eyes across the cover using the rule of thirds composition and large bold text boxes. Overall, VIBE has a more vibrant, modern design aimed at younger audiences while ROLLING STONE's simpler design appeals more to established fans of its featured artists.

1. The target audience for this magazine is
16+ as it contains interviews with bands
of an older genre. It’s set in quite an old
font making it look like quite a traditional
magazine. The main image of Amy
Winehouse is nothing special, she’s
dressed in a plain black vest top showing
the audience all her tattoos which links in
with the genre of this magazine which is
quite indie/rock. The three main colours
are blue, red, and black. The blue and
red fonts look like they have been edited
to look washed out and simple. The main
image has been used to demonstrate the
rule of thirds as Amy has been placed on
the far right hand side so that the cover
lines can be situated on the left. The
effect this has is the way that you actually
read over the front cover. Amy
Winehouse herself as a singer, her genre
of music is the blues and jazz possibly why the font looks quite washed out, this sets
an atmosphere helping you know what will be featuring in the magazine, the type of
music that will be displayed and the genre of people that will be being interviewed in
the magazine. The masthead ‘Rolling Stone’ is very well known, which is why it
doesn’t really matter that Amy’s hair covers half of the masthead, as you still know
what it says. There isn’t really anything exciting or interesting on the front cover as its
very plain and simple, neither the colour of the font or the main image is striking, it
feels like it isn’t trying to attract anyone other than the regular people who read it.
Guttenbergs theory of reading gravity, isn’t used in this front cover as it states that it
pulls your eyes from the primary optical area to the bottom right, the terminal area. In
this magazine the primary optical area shows the start of the name of the magazine
and the cover line ‘Summer Tours’ which will immediately attract people as the
people featured in this magazine ‘The Police’ ‘The White Stripes’ etc... don’t really
tour much. Another of Guttenbergs theory is the use of the ‘strong fallow area’ which
is used very well in this magazine, in the strong fallow area, a large bold framed text
box has been placed with a headlining story inside. In the axis of orientation the
cover lines have been placed. In house style the same font for the name of the
magazine is used, also the same washed out effect used on the text is the same on
all of the magazines made by ‘Rolling Stone’.

2. The target audience for this magazine is people
who enjoy the genres; rap, hip-hop, Rnb and
dance. Straight away you can tell this magazine
is quite vibrant and modern due to use of the
contrasting colours pink and blue attracting
possibly both male and female, its bright and
bold and very eye catching. The main image of
Kanye West is a portrait photo, this doesn’t
apply to the rule of thirds as his face has been
situated in the middle of the magazine. Kanye is
the main cover story where he says ‘the truth
hurts, I am rap’ His jumper collar has been
edited to match the colour font used across the
magazine. He looks very serious and sends off a
moody vibe. The coverlines are in accumulating
different colours, black blue black blue, and are
the names of different artists that are being
featured throughout this magazine. The masthead vibe has been covered by Kanyes
hair, most likely due to that the actual magazine vibe is very well known and you no
what it is without having to look at it all. House style with the magazine is the same
throughout all of its magazines, it uses contrasting colours throughout, always uses
portrait photos of celebrities for the main image of each magazine and near enough
always has the main image taking over some of the font used for the name of the
magazine. Using Guttenbergs theory the primary optical area is used to straight
away grab attention by using the words ‘exclusive’ on a story featured inside the
magazine. Reading gravity then pulls your eyes down to the terminal area where
there is a little box formed by small contrasting colours of black and white stating that
this magazine celebrates the best music in history. In the strong fallow area the word
‘notorious’ has been put into italic, you know then straight away that the artist
notorious b.i.g is being featured in the magazine. Axis of orientation is used in that all
cover lines have been spread across this way, and they feature on both sides of the
main image.

3. The VIBE magazine is much more eye-catching than ROLLING STONE through its
use of wild and bright contrasting colours. It keeps the audience wanting more using
cliff hangers as story covers such as ’10 B.I.G secrets the film won’t tell’ it also uses
Guttenbergs theory throughout the front cover, with an eye-catching primary optical
area, and strong fallow area, it also has a nice finish to the magazine by using the
terminal well, by adding on the end that the magazine celebrates the best music in
history. You can tell just by looking at the front cover that it will introduce you too new
upcoming artists and music thats currently hitting the charts, interviews with new
artists and all the lastest gossip. Whereas ROLLING STONE magazine uses washed
out colours that go well with the genre of magazine, however the front cover isn’t
very eye-catching and is very simple and gives of a vibe that it isn’t really interesting
in grabbing peoples attention and isn’t bothered about appealing to all audiences, it
looks much more traditional especially for people with an older taste in music that
people of a younger audience may not have possibly heard of. ROLLING STONE
uses rule of thirds very well in that the main image is situated on the right hand side,
so that axis of orientation can appeal by letting the audience read the cover lines
first. It also uses strong fallow area much stronger than VIBE in that it has a strong
bold box introducing you into a bit of gossip. By looking at the magazine unless you
have read the magazine before you don’t really know what to expect which can be
good in a sense in that it can be more appealing to the audience as they want to
what they are going to get by reading it.