Analysing Football Magazine Covers

Analysing football magazine covers

I am going to analyse 3 magazine covers from the sport/football genre of magazine. I will analyse the following magazine covers; FourFourTwo, Match and Match of the Day.  The purpose of analysing these magazines is to give myself an understanding of the common conventions used in the creation of these type of publication. As Bentley said in 1997, “the creative process is the rearranging of the old to create the new.” This is relevant because I am going to use these common conventions from the magazines I’m analysing to create my own product that will reach out to target audience.

FourFourTwo was launched in 1994 after a now-show by England at the World Cup in the USA; the magazine arrived on the newsstands with a fresh, insightful approach to football entering its 20^th year. FourFourTwo’s readers are knowledgeable about the game and vary in age from youngsters to senior citizens and they are all over the world. FourFourTwo magazine is now published in 15 different territories across the world.

The primary target audience for FourFourTwo magazine is men aged 16+ with a secondary target audience of any football fans, pitched at C1-E. 

The title of the magazine is FourFourTwo. This name works for this magazine because the name is directly related to the genre that it is publicizing, as it is a formation used in the game of football. Having this as a masthead works because the target audience will see the title and knows instantly that it might be something they want to read about as it relates to their genre. In terms of the size of the masthead follows common conventions as it takes around 1/8 of the page. The masthead isn’t covered the main image and is clear to see. However a box of text partially covers the bottom of the masthead. This is able to happen because the magazine is well known. When I come to creating my magazine I shall not look to cover my masthead at all as my magazine isn’t well known so I would want my masthead to be known and remembered so I want it to be visible.  The style of the masthead is good because it is a bold and plain font, which is very simple and is in a simplistic colour, red. The colour red is a suitable colour to use as it is the colour of many well known football teams around the world and is a colour that you would often see within football. The colour red also connotes passion and desire, which are strongly associated with the attitudes in football. This means that seeing such colours will have a positive effect on the target audience, as they will recognize the colour.

The layout of the magazine is fairly busy although there is only one main image. The positioning of the word kick off is placed in the middle of the magazine; this is well positioned because the kick off takes place in the centre of the pitch, where the word “kick off” is placed. The star vehicles are positioned as to where their teams would be placed in terms of ability and they have used arguably the most well known players from each team to promote the magazine so that the target audience will recognize. The magazine uses the colours red and white so that no fans feel left out as most teams use the either red or white somewhere in their kit. Also, the front of the magazine contains players of different origins, which shows that racial diversity within the magazine. This is vital in helping the magazines to become successful worldwide.

In terms of images, or image in this magazines case. There is one main image that takes up pretty much all of the front cover. The image is of six popular premier league players who will be competing and performing some of the best football in the season to come. The image also contains kits from the top teams from the premier league, which will draw in the target audience as they as well known and will be easily recognisable.  The expressions of the players in the images look as though they look ready for the game and for the season ahead.










 

Match! is a weekly British football magazine aimed at the teenage and pre-teenage market. First published in 1979, the magazine has a circulation of 57,108 as of December 2010^. The magazine includes interviews, a skills school, quizzes and a weekly round-up of results, tables and player ratings from the four main English divisions and the Scottish Premier League in MatchFacts. It mostly covers teams and players in the English Premier League, but also has a limited coverage of La Liga, Serie A and international football.
Match magazine was launched on 6 September 1979, at a cover price of 25p. The original editor was Mel Bagnall. Kevin Keegan was the first cover star of Match and supported the magazine with his column, Learn To Play The Keegan Way. The first issue came with an 80-page sticker album and included columns by Tottenham star Ossie Ardiles, Manchester United's Steve Coppell and Nottingham Forest manager, Brian Clough. Later columnists included David Platt, Mark Bright and Ryan Giggs.

The title of the magazine is Match. This name works for this magazine because the name is directly related to the genre that it is publicising, as you play a 'match' of football. This as a masthead works because the target audience will see the word 'Match' and know instantly that it might be something they want to read about as it relates to their genre, football. In terms of the size of the masthead follows common conventions as it takes around 1/8 of the page. The masthead is partially covered by the main image, however due to the masthead being a known and relateable word,"Match.". Also, this is able to happen because the magazine is well known. When I come to creating my magazine I shall not look to cover my masthead at all as my magazine isn’t well known so I would want my masthead to become known and remembered so I want it to be visible.  The style of the masthead is good because it is a bold and plain font, which is very simple and is in a simplistic colour, red. The colour red is a suitable colour to use as it is the colour of many well known football teams around the world and is a colour that you would often see within football. The colour white also connotes wholeness and purity, which are strongly associated with the attitudes in football. This means that seeing such colours will have a positive effect on the target audience, as they will recognize the colour.

The layout of the magazine is fairly busy although there is only one main image. The positioning of the word "match!" is placed in the middle of the magazine; this is well positioned because it is the first thing that you look at when you see the magazine. The star vehicles are positioned as to where their teams would be placed in terms of ability and they have used arguably the most well known players from each team to promote the magazine so that the target audience will recognize. The magazine uses the colours red and white so that no fans feel left out as most teams use the either red or white somewhere in their kit. Also, the front of the magazine contains players of different origins, which shows that racial diversity within the magazine. This is vital in helping the magazines to become successful worldwide.

In terms of images, or image in this magazines case. There isn't one main image that takes up all of the front cover.The main image consists of well known players that are the subject of transfer news, as that it what the main feature of this addition of the magazine is, so the image gives an inclination into who and what the news might be. Other than this, there are lots of smaller images that are linked with other stories and competitions within the magazine.These images once more promote the contents of the magazine and what readers can look forward too.

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The title of this magazine is 'Match of the Day' which works for this genre because Match of the Day is a very well known and popular BBC football highlights show and this magazine is a product under the same brand. This means that seeing this title on a magazine fans of the TV show will recognise a will known show, that they like, and pick up the magazine. The masthead follows common conventions in the sense that is 1/8th of the page. The masthead is almost 100% visible, but its partially covered by the main star vehicle. This is acceptable for this magazine as it is well known, however, I will not look to do this with my magazine as it won't be well known.The masthead works well for this genre because it is a simple and bold font which has a football in place of the 'O' in 'of'. This masthead is a recognised masthead across many media platforms including, magazines, the internet and the  TV. This masthead is well known and has proved its effectiveness with the audience that it is targeting. The colours used in the masthead, black writing on a yellow background works well for this genre because the colours used and used and associated with football and in a way that kits and club merchandise is sold in these different colours for the teams that use them.

The layout of this magazine is busy although there is only one main image that fills most of the page. This seems to be a common convention of most football magazines.The main story is about the new season kicking off and the middle of the page this is advertised with the words, "Kick Off" this positioning of this title is important because it is in the middle of the page, where the kick off in a match of football takes place. The star vehicles in the image are positioned around the title showing that they are all involved with the kick off of the new season. The players used in the images are all top footballers and will be easily recognised by football fans, the target audience of this magazine. There are players in the image of multiple ethnic origins and this will help the magazine to appeal to a wider audience of people as it shows racial diversity and will enable the magazine to become more of a success worldwide.. In terms of colours the magazine follows common conventions as it contains a main colour scheme of yellow, black and red. These colours are associated with football and connote things that are associated with football. Black connotes the unknown and this is good for the main story is the start of the new season which is unknown. Yellow connotes happiness which is often associated with football as it brings entertainment and happiness to people who enjoy it and this feeling can be reached while playing football.