Denotation:
The magazine cover consists of a colour photograph of a man looking straight at the camera. It is a medium long shot showing his head, arms and waist. He is leaning on something that looks like it is made of concrete (not clear) and he is standing straight with most of his left hand and his right thumb in his pockets. The background of the photograph is maroon and the photograph covers the whole of the magazine cover. Behind the man is the Vibe masthead and in front of him is a cover-line in white with a black drop shadow. Also in front of him are 8 separate subtitles going down the right hand side in white and green writing. A barcode is visible in the bottom right corner.
Masthead:
Vibe’s masthead is quite plain and simple. Each of the letters is in capitals except for the ‘e’ on the end which is in lower case.
Character:
The cover photograph is of the American singer/rapper Chris Brown.
Composition: He is posed in a much laid back and calm way. He looks quite ‘gangster’ and his pose, body language and clothing are attractive to women as well as men.
Costume: His clothing is a red t-shirt showing off his arms and a pair of navy blue jeans with a matching coloured new era hat. The way he is dressed appeals to the target audience who are more likely to be male than female. The clothing worn is similar to the costumes he wears in his music videos and album covers to promote his music. This connotes that it could be his signature look which is a real selling point as his fans would love to dress like the star himself.
NVC: His non-verbal communication is also quite gangster. His mouth is closed and his head is slightly facing up as he stares right at the camera.
Lighting: The lighting is in low key as the photograph was taken indoors.
Setting: The setting isn’t really clear as most of it is blurred. However what we can see looks like a big concrete table with black designs on it. The designs almost go together with the skull tattoo on his hand.
Cover-lines:
The main cover-line reads: “Is that Chris Brown? I’m still a virgin… in your eyes.” The first part of the cover-line shows that we are starting to see a new side to Chris Brown. The second part goes with his facial expression in the photograph. The fact that he has a serious face in the photograph shows that it is a serious subject. It also shows that he is starting to grow and become more mature. Apart from that, it makes people want to buy the magazine just to find out what is going on as he is considered more of a ladies man.
Target Audience:
Considering all of the points above the likely target audience would be people aged 20 – 35. Younger people would know a lot more about this type of music and the stories in this magazine.
