Analysis of Film Magazine Cover

This 'Empire' magazine cover has a conventional layout, with a large image of the main actor from the featured movie, with Empire's famous red masthead at the top of the magazine cover. The way in which the center image covers the Masthead displays Empire's establishment as an iconic film magazine, the 'Empire' brand is so well known and thus does not need as much exposure as say a new magazine trying to launch itself into the market.

The front cover of the magazine uses a striking red, white, black and grey colour scheme, in tying with the traditional colours of the movie protagonist Spider-Man and also in keeping with the red 'Empire' title.

The image of 'Spider-Man' actor Tobey McGuire is very eye-catching as his face is very emphasised. His face looks very angry with his eyebrows pointed downwards and accompanied with his new black suit informs the reader that this 'Spider-Man', from the third installment of the series very contrasting to the stereotypical hero seen in the previous two movies. He is a new, darker Spider-Man. The iconic Spider-Man web-shooting pose means the viewer of the magazine relates the image straight away to the 'Spider-Man' franchise and not to the actor Tobey McGuire.

There is significant text included on the front cover besides the 'Empire' Masthead. The feature story located on the upper half of the cover, informs the reader of what they can find inside the magazine and does so in a very effective way due to the very large contrasting black and white font written behind the main image. The other section of text located in the bottom right hand corner tells the reader of other celebrities featured inside and means more people will be attracted as a wider range of very popular people with the likes of Cameron Diaz and Mel Gibson mentioned.

The cover is very conventional, with a barcode, price and date all visible. This adds to the authentic look of the magazine. There is very good use of advertising on the front cover with the offer of two movie posters for two big hollywood block-busters, this will entice yet more people to purchase a copy of the magazine particularly as the word 'free' makes the buyer really feel they are receiving an outstanding offer if they buy the magazine.