The document provides an overview of the rap magazine XXL, summarizing similarities and differences between different issues' front covers. Some key similarities discussed include the consistent placement of the XXL logo to maintain brand identity, the recurring use of bold black and red text and colors to appeal to its target young male demographic, and artists typically having straight faces expressing aggression and seriousness to be seen as strong figures. One difference highlighted is a cover featuring Dr. Dre playing chess to portray him as a strategic player rather than the usual dark clothing looks.

1. XXL
Rap Magazine
Overview

2. These are my 6 different front covers that have appeared in the rap magazine that is XXL. This is an
overview of the rap magazine XXL in which I am going to cover the similarities and differences
between each magazine.
One similarity throughout XXL’s magazines is the logo XXL. You can see that they have the same text
types in each issue. One example is the title of XXL and that in each issue it is placed in the same
place and is the same colour, text size and text style. This is to create and keep a brand identity so
then the target audience and customers will know what to look for to know it is a XXL magazine. As
you can see from the images the XXL logo is a reoccurring theme to the magazine. Furthermore
because of this they have created a brand identity so they can place hip hop artists in front of the
logo because people are still going to know it is the magazine XXL.
Another similarity of these magazines are that they have a reoccurring theme of the text being big
and bold with the use of black and red mainly. This is because the magazine is mainly aimed towards
young males so in order for the magazine to appeal to a young male from the working class it should
have masculine colours because this is what they prefer over say a pop magazine with bright bubbly
colours. So the colours red and black do this job well and the magazine uses these colours mainly in
each issue.
From looking at a lot of rap magazine front covers, most artists have a straight, plain face with the
emotions of aggression and serious. This is because rap artists want to be taken seriously and want
to be seen as a strong and tough male figure. Having this theme throughout every artist on the front
cover of most XXL magazines they can really relate to hip hop fans and so people will know that that
magazine is a rap one. In addition to this, there is a common costume theme of the artists in each
issue of XXL magazines. The costumes usually follow dark clothing or plain white t -shirts and lots of
jewellery and tattoos.
However XXL sometimes breaks away from the common theme as we can see in the first image with
Dr Dre playing chess. This shows us that he is a tactical player in the game of rap and that he controls
what goes on in the hip hop society, which he is boss so to speak. Also on that particular front cover
because it is the end of the year issue you can see that it says “2010 Eye Candy of the Year” which
most magazines don’t have. This will add additional features to the magazine and will appeal to the
target audience even further because they are mostly seen to be young males, so they will be
interested in this sell line.