All the front covers of VIBE magazine are designed to entice R&B fans to buy their magazine and learn and be informed about new music news. By

looking at all the cover magazines you can tell that there is a pattern being repeated in each cover.

All of the 8 magazine covers maintain a typical feature that is very distinctive in each episode. The layouts of VIBE magazine are all similar

and make it easy for the audience to depict the magazine. The front covers all include a main image, a masthead and sell-lines and the

occasion strap-lines.

The audience can see other repeated patterns such as the main images for each cover photo are usually images of an artist not groups this could indicate that there is hardly groups associated in this genre of music. This could be because half of the R&B music is done in studios and the backing

sounds are done on a computer than actual instruments. In each of the front covers the main images is of an R&B artist and is normally

positioned in the middle of the page, some are slightly at a tilt whilst others are facing the front directly. Each of the artist are looking the audience directly in the eye this could grab the buys attention when

searching for a music magazine. The main image normally fills the whole page and the writing is written on top or over the image of the artist. The

main image is normally placed over the masthead this could show the importance of the artist and the fact that that the magazine is well know they don’t have to reveal the whole masthead for the audience to know

what magazine they are trying to sell.

When analysing the magazine covers you can see that most of them feature male artists more than women artists because more males listen to R&B more than females. Keri Hilson and Kesha are the only two female

artists out of the other six male artists on the different covers. Even a feature image of another magazine cover has a male artist on the cover too. The fact that most of the artists featured on the cover are male this might illustrate that women aren’t really presented in the music press as

much as they could be.

In most of the covers there are similarities in the mise-en-scene elements that are presented to the audience. In terms of costumes most of the

costumes are ghetto unusual things people would wear in a club or some sort. They are all wearing a contrast of dark and light colours such as

black and white. None of them feature bright colours such as yellow or any other peculiar colours. The costumes for the female artists are quite revealing and unique for the men some are revealing whilst others are

cool and give off a fresh look this might influence the audience to look up

to them. Items such as a snapback, shirt and tie could give of a fresh cool look and items such as see through dresses and leotards give of the impression of boldness and confidence. The men with their tops off,

wearing hooded sweatshirt and tracksuits bottoms can show the men’s masculinity. The cover of T.I in a suit could be seen as an outlier to all the

other covers in the magazine. It goes against the conventions to VIBE magazine as you hardly see males in suits on the front cover page but this

could show that the artist means business. The change in look might entice the audience more to buy the magazine to see what’s happening in

the magazine and what’s happening to the artist. Most of the artist featured on the front of the covers are dark haired and only two are blond

hair and they are women.

Another feature that they all share is the fact that each of the magazine covers has a red or white colour infill. This is a symbolic link between all 8 covers this might be done to show their class or their uniqueness against

other magazines. When the background of the whole magazine is light the mast head infill is usually red and when it’s a dark background the infill is normally white. This is a good way that the magazine shows contrast and

keeps it sustainable. The dark and light contrast gives the magazine a sexy feel which the male artist might buy into. The red and white colours

are a common theme on the rest of the magazine cover to make it sustainable. The positioning of the masthead of ‘VIBE’ stays in the same place for each series of the magazine. In 7 out of 8 covers the model is covering the masthead this could show the popularity in the magazine

and how well know it is to the audience that they don’t have o see all of the letters to know what magazine it is. Unlike new magazines that have

to make sure that there masthead is always show to the audience for them to recognise what magazine it is. The strap-line onto of the

masthead on most of the cover to tell the audience about exclusive information and what pages they are on also they let you know what

artists are featured throughout the magazine. The masthead is on the top of the page in the middle and is in a large font to make it stand out and

make it recognise able for the audience to view.

The sell-lines featured in each of the covers are in different places most times. Most of them are placed at the top left hand corner this could be

because that is where the human eye goes first when looking at something. The sell-line normal goes somewhere alongside the main

images it hardly goes over the image for acceptation of the ‘Kesha’ series as her name is in a large font that has to over ride the image. The sell-line is normal features the artist that’s used in the main image. There name is always featured in it in some way or another like the Kesha volume ‘Hip hop guilty pleasure Kesha’ this also gives the audience an idea of the

artists name if they didn’t know who they were. It also mentions ‘Chris Brown the future of R&B’ this can show to the audience that there is a

new artist coming onto the scene and if they buy and read the magazine they can find out more about him, before many others, this could be seen

to the reader as exclusive news. This could entice more males to the magazine as the new artist is a male themselves which means they would

have more in common and his lyrics might appeal to them.

Colour wise VIBE uses a lot of whites and dark colours as their background in each issues of the magazine. The background colour is normally

accompanied by a bright colour for the font such as red, yellow or blue and if the background is white they usually use black as the writing font. Being quite manly colours they will appeal to them more than females. The black and white colour schemes might give out a mysterious and

formal look to the magazine.

The layouts of all the magazine covers are all the same they have the writing around the outside of the artist/model and keep them the main image of the whole page. They never seem to have feature images of

other artists that sell-lines are about. In only two of the covers the magazine features a puff to entice and engage the audience more to their

magazine? All the images are spaced in the centre of the page which shows the importance of the artist. The space between the image and the background this shows the importance of the artist against the rest of the cover. The barcode in all of the covers are places in the bottom half of the page either on the left or right hand side or on occasions in the middle. All

the artists costumes portraits the type of artist they are.

Having done this overview i can see that VIBE has its own brand identity and individuality which makes it easy to single it out from other

magazines by its target audience. They do this by maintaining a specific look, layout and style to all there editions and keeping to it. This is a

successful way of making the magazine exclusive and distinctive.