Hello Magazine Christmas Special
The purpose of a magazine cover is to draw the attention of the reader and make you want to buy their magazine. To do this the magazine needs a clear, easy to read name, and a bold headline that catches the eye due to the words used. The headline and sub headings need to stand out and the main cover story needs to be about something well known and interesting. Each magazine needs something specific to them, and the layout is important as it’s how the magazine is usually recognised. When magazines are on stands, usually they are layered on top of each other and all you can see is the left third, this needs to be the most striking part of the magazine, as the left third has the job of attracting readers.
This Hello! Christmas special magazine is purposely created for its readers to find out what’s on TV this Christmas. The main audience is targeted at Hello Readers who may be buying the Hello magazine and also see this one. By including the Hello Logo and keeping a similar layout, the magazine is targeting a readymade audience. Also the magazine is targeting a wide audience because it has a range of different TV entertainment on the front cover for all different ages - Downton Abbey – period drama, the regular Soap Operas, Strictly come Dancing, comedy shows and films.
The mast head is the same style as the usual Hello magazine (keeping the Hello magazine identity), however instead of the logo being red and white, it is gold and white, to represent Christmas and the fact that it is a Hello special, covering television and entertainment over Christmas. The colours are all Christmas based, and on the image captions the flash boxes are a red background to keep some of the same style and layout of the normal Hello magazine style. The writing all stands out, with the main headline in capital, and part of it enlarged to grab the reader’s attention. This means that when glancing at the magazines, a person’s eyes will be drawn to the headline – so the editors of the magazine have made the cover story and headline important and targeted at a wide audience range. As the main cover story is targeted at all ages, the main graphic is easily and well recognisable, appealing to all. The main image includes two key characters of Downton Abbey – a popular rated show, dressed up standing in front of a Christmas tree, this can be used through connotation to predict that the episode being promoted will be very Christmas based and festive. The characters shown are composed in a way that looks neither happy nor unhappy, giving the impression that there are not many hints about the episode, leaving viewers to wait and see for themselves. This targets all audiences as many people do not like a storyline to be spoiled, and can specifically target a family based audience, who are gathered together at Christmas watching Christmas episodes and television in the evening.
The main image is clearly a posed shot, and fans of Downton Abbey will recognise the significance of those characters being selected for the front cover. The characters smart dress style and the traditional Christmas photo composition show off the elegance of the drama. The smaller images shown underneath are all to be aired in the week of Christmas, promoting the entertainment over Christmas. This assures the reader that the magazine is purely for television and entertainment purposes and not clashing with the regular weekly Hello magazine. The programmes advertised on the front are targeted at wide age ranges, however are very family based, which complements the tradition that Christmas is family time.
By using the phrase, ‘behind the scenes exclusive’ it prompts the reader to think that this story is only in Hello entertainment, and persuades them to buy the magazine as it has its own specific stories different to other magazines. This may make the reader think if they don’t buy this magazine, they won’t be able to find out about these stories on the cover that drew their attention in the first place.
