EMPIRE MAGAZINE

Information

Empire is a British film magazine published by Bauer Consumer Media which is published monthly. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry Mellheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased this company in 2008. It is the biggest selling film magazine in the UK and is also published in various countries around the world such as the US, Turkey, Italy and Russia.

It mostly features current blockbusters and high budget productions which is what makes it so popular and well known within the industry by both audiences and critics alike .

One of the magazines main features is its iconic title font which is used in every edition at the top of the page. This repetitive use of masthead is to give the audience something that will make the magazine easily identifiable and recognisable within the industry, drawing in the readers attention. This is often red however can change with the colour scheme of the theme and to fit the general mood of the film (as seen in the examples included below).

The top of the page also include a skyline which gives the audience an extra clue as to what may be inside the feature. This is interesting this is more conventionally used in magazines to include smaller and less significant articles inside. This however, may be being used to emphasise the importance of the featured film to the audience which is a good selling point for the film and concentrates/dedicates the whole cover to it.

Colour Schemes

Like Film Comment, Empire uses three-four colours in total on their covers. This is effectively used to make the cover aesthetically pleasing to the eye as well as drawing attention to each different section of the front cover. Unlike film comment however, Empire uses much more vibrant and eye catching shades of colour – often using red and yellow as their main colours. This could be to reflect the mainstream films included and to make the cover more appealing and interesting to a wider audience, rather than the others we have analysed which are less generic. This contrast is shown in the images to the right where we see one magazine using primary colours and the other choosing darker, more subtle tones of red.

Secondary Imagery

Empire uses secondary images which show audiences what is included inside the magazine. This often takes the form of a film clipping which is effective as it reinforces and reminds the audience of the genre of the magazine. This is a good technique as it allows for smaller images to show audiences famous faces which will pull them into the magazine. It also takes up less space on the magazine in comparison to if they were to write about each individual film shown in the secondary pictures. This allows for the editors to include more content on the cover, whilst maximising their space to its fullest.

Puffs

Empire uses puffs in almost every edition of its magazine. Puffs are in defection ‘ short, explosive burst of

breath or wind’ which is represented in a use of usually about 5 words to draw the

reader in. Exclamation marks are also used here to show the audiences that

the articles are exciting.

The fact that they are often bright colours makes them seem even more interesting to the readers as it stands

out from the background image without overpowering i. This is due to the fact that puffs are often very small in size

and so they do not detract attention off of the main focus of the cover. This is

something we do not see in magazines such as Film comment which use more

simplistic effects for displaying their text.

Male dominance

Empire uses mostly male actors as the cover of their blog. This is because mainstream films more often than not use a strong male figure as their main character. This dominance over women can be seen in many of the covers, as the women are often placed behind the males.

This may show the magazines target audience to be majority males, as it reinforces the stereotype of the ‘perfect male’ and makes its audience aspire to be like the characters. This is a clever marketing technique which is used throughout the media industry.