Magazine deconstruction-Megan Szram

This a United based magazine, monthly full covered magazine covering; hip hop music, culture and politics. The Source has widley become one of Americas most influencial hip hop magazines and known as the 'bible of hip hop'

The Source follows the conventions of general magazines but in particular, the genre of Hip-Hop. The general layout of the front cover is conventional. The masthead is positioned at the top of the page in the largest font as it is important to immediately identify the title to the reader. However it is a convention to sometimes overlay the masthead with the main image as seen in some of Source‘s issues. The top of joung Jeezys hat/head is covering a slight part of the name of the magazine. This shows his importance, and attracts the reader as he is very well known. This a convention that many other markets use as they are familular with the issue and the house style of the magazine.

The house style is extreamly important as it visually familurises the magazine from numerous other styles of magazines that are on the market already. In this case the house style can be clearly identified by the used of bold block capitals, the defined font that is origionl and cleverly goes well with the theme of hip hop, its almost graffitie like.

The text also cleverly borders the image which makes young jeezy the main focus, and the main importance of the magazine. Young jeezy is a well known hip hop artist in America; therefore this would definately draw more attention and more custemors to buy the magazine as there may be a 'special article' or a 'interview'.

“The Source” uses a calm and simple layout, the use of blues for the background, could connote the artist emotions or feelings to life as his latest music has being more soothing than hard rap. There are only three main colours used on the cover and this is conventional for magazine covers because it keeps the professional look and also defines the house style of the particular magazine.

The use of the bold yellow text 'Young Jeezy' shows the importace to the artist in this particular issue, and also anchors the main image of the artist himelf. The colours used in this issue are black, blue, white and yellow, however all the fonts other than in the masthead are sans serif this helps to keep consistencey, defines the housestyle and make the magazine look professional without a variety of fonts that make it look muddled.

Above the masthead is a caption 'BARAK OBAMA: LIVE FROM HE DNC' this draws the target reader to one of the main features in the magazine as it is above the masthead and in blod block caps. Although this is a mostly known for being a music magazine, it cleverly brings several other subjects such as: polotics to draw a wider reading variety of people to want to buy an interesting magazine. Barak obama has also been known for being a hip president who likes music in America. Another important caption that is used on the front cover is 'YOUNG JEEZY-HERO TO THE HOOD' this can eaily be noticed as its yellow and a bigger bolder font and can easily be distiguished, however this caption isn't easily understandabe to all people as they are not familular to this type of language, so here it uses a particular idea to draw the target audice to the magazine. Not much inforation is used here but enough to entice the reader so they want to buy it and, read on.

The image used on the cover of the magazine is very important in defining the genre and look of the music magazine and in attracting the target audience. The artist featured on this front cover would be familiar to the target audience and, would act as a draw to encourage Hip Hop fans to buy this issue and, find out more about the artist, lifestyle or stories. The artist is positioned in a medium close up to express his facial features and clothing. The artist clothing is representative of the Hip Hop culture, it represents hip hop through earrings and chains which shows wealth, the glasses are most likely to be of high value and also the reflection in the glasses shows his vision of his “hood” which is linked to the caption. The hat is of a style popular among the target audience and is easily recognised and can been seen as an advertisement so the audience may go and buy the same style this shows magazines act as an aspiration to their readers.