This document discusses how magazines use design techniques to psychologically manipulate readers and attract their attention. It analyzes magazine covers and contents pages, noting how they prominently display eye-catching titles, celebrity images and headlines that play on readers' interests and insecurities to make them want to pick up and purchase the magazine. Specific techniques included are using bold colors and fonts, celebrity endorsements, promises of lifestyle improvements from reading the magazine, and strategically placing attention-grabbing text in high contrast colors. The goal is to intrigue readers enough to buy the magazine by preying on their interests and desire to learn secrets about celebrities, fashion and success.

2. Magazine Designs- Psycho-
Manipulation
• I split the magazines into areas of specialty; Celebs, Media, Children’s, Teen and
Miscellaneous. They all follow the same basic themes of magazines and are
designed to target a reader and attract their attention.
• Each magazine has the title in bold, decorated print as big and eye-catching as
possible to target possible readers. The cover images are all something a possible
reader would have to be interested in. For example, the health magazines show
very attractive and well built people to trick possible readers into thinking they too
could achieve that and the media magazines show some of the most relevant
issues in their area of specialty, like Interstellar and Witcher 3 which were two
huge releases in film and gaming. This grabs the readers immediate attention,
which leads them to picking the magazine up.
• Once the reader takes a closer look, they’ll see all sorts of small headlines that
target the assumed interest of a target audience. The teen magazines are based
around superficiality and gossip, such as ‘Pretty Hair Secrets’ and ‘Justin: Exclusive
Interview’. While the media magazines focus more around new releases and
interviews, such as ‘The Scariest Movie of the Year Revealed’ or ‘Inside Christopher
Nolan’s Science Fiction Masterpiece’. Each magazine does this in their own way to
carry the readers interest all the way to the checkout.

3. This is GQ (Gentleman’s Quarterly) magazine. It’s
target audience is mainly middle/upper class men
that focuses on fashion, culture, media, fitness,
music, technology, etc. The colours used on this
cover, prominently red and blue, set two different
tones for the reader. The colour red promotes
urgency, which gets new readers to buy this as an
impulse product, while blue promotes comfort,
perhaps brining back regular buyers with a sense of
familiarity. The anchorage text is of a celebrities
name, trying to intrigue readers using celebrity
status. The central image is of a well dressed Ricky
Martin, the text saying that he’s a pop star, sex
symbol, role model, etc. This is done to make the
reader think that they too can aspire to his level, be
attractive, stylish and successful. The magazine
encourages that mind-set further with the caption
‘136 Steps To A Stylish Spring’. It tells the reader
that if they want to be attractive and successful,
this magazine is the best way for that to happen.
Basically, these covers cause the reader to feel
insecure about their lives and promises that secrets
to self improvement can be found inside.
Magazine Analysis

4. Genre Conventions
All of these music magazines heavily features the colours red and black. These colours tend
Most of the mastheads are set in the background, usually with the artist slightly obscuring
it.

5. Moodboard

6. Masthead
The text is larger than the rest of
the text, yet it’s not a prominent
as the anchorage text. This
suggests that the magazine isn’t a
recognizable as the celebrities it
features and the editors have used
this to their advantage by putting
more focus on the big names
rather than the magazine name.
Anchorage Text
The anchorage text mentions
Arctic Monkeys to attract the
reader who would be aware of big
bands. The key image of Alex
Turner would be recognized by
music fans who would in turn
want to buy the magazine and
find out his most influential track.
The colour of the anchorage text
is red to link with the masthead
and drag the reader’s eye across
the key sections of the page. This
ensures readers notice the
musical references that they
recognize and will make them
want to buy the product to read
about.
Colours
These are the colours used over
the cover. They are used to draw
the readers eye over the text. This
means if someone sees the words
‘Arctic Monkeys’ in bright red,
then they will be naturally drawn
to read the other storylines in
bright red. The same happens for
the bright blue and other colours.
This means the reader may see
other names that they recognise
and stories they might be
interested in which makes them
more likely to buy the magazine.
Many of these colours are also
contrasting colours, such as black
and white, which makes the text
easier to read.

7. Contents Page
The contents is made to be eye
catching, as is shown here in the use
of colours. The page subjects are all in
red to indicate their importance and
to ensure that the readers eye follows
every he entire list. This means the
reader is more likely to see several
artists or bands they recognise on the
contents as their gaze will follow the
entire list. The biggest article is
centred as it’s the most likely to
intrigue readers and the subscription
information stands out at the bottom.
The colour scheme, red and black,
seems male centred. This would make
sense as a large number of NME
customers are male.
The title is eye
catching, being a
separate colour from
the text beside it and
the background
The band names are all in one
place so that it’s more likely
for a reader to spot more than
one name they recognise
The
subscription
box stands
out

9. Double Page Spread
The title is larger and differently coloured than the rest of the page, making it incredibly
attention drawing. The title is also an intriguing quote from the interviewee, making fans
more interested in reading on. The image is of Noel Gallagher, and a side image of his
band. This lets fans immediately notice the image and will get them to carry on reading.
The article itself details wild band stories of Noel’s, interesting he reader in his life and the
Rock and Roll lifestyle.