Textual Analysis of a Magazine Cover - By Ife

The magazine cover I have decided to analyze is "EMPIRE" which is a well-known British film magazine, which is released monthly. The issue I have chosen to analyze has the Warner brothers smash hit film 'The Dark Knight' on the cover. The main picture is a picture of the infamous character The Joker played by the late Heath Ledger.

The picture of the joker takes up the whole page. He is sitting in a relaxed pose although the way he is sitting is a bit patronizing. His hands are on his thighs and his legs are open with his feet oddly positioned. His head is tilted down and his he is holding strong eye contact with the camera thus the reader. His facial expression is a bit devious which goes well with the look that is trying to be created.

The color scheme is parallel to the joker’s outfit. The main colors used are neon green, magenta and bright red. I think these colors are used because they are commonly associated with clowns, fun fairs, fun, mystery and they are SHARP colors that will catch attention of passers by especially as they are placed on a black background. The jokers costume down to his shoes and socks all denote that he is a clown, however a very sinister one. I feel they are trying to denote a friendly and welcoming clown but connotations suggest that there are probably a few dark things about the joker that the readers re unaware of.

The lighting is generally quite low key, and the location seems to be a cell or some sort of confined area with bars.

The masthead 'Empire' is placed at the top of the magazine in big bold RED letters. However we cannot see the whole of the word because Heath Ledger’s head is blocking some of the text, but this does not matter because EMPIRE is so recognized they can afford to do this as the audience will still know what magazine it is.

The coverlines are written in neon green, magenta and white. All the colors clash incredibly as they all demand attention because they are so bright, nevertheless it works very well, and with the assortment of diverse fonts and colors bizarrely placed on the cover, it actually looks very good.

Above the masthead in white its says ‘The Dark Knight….World Exclusive!’ separated by the batman logo. It is in the same font as the masthead but a lot smaller. It is almost a bit hard to read because the color falls into the background at the end of the word Knight and the beginning of the word World. The use of the words ‘world exclusive’ will make the readers feel special and privileged, and it will entice fans of Batman, and followers of the dark knight.

The date line is also above the masthead, it is written in a very small font, same as website address.

The main coverline which is related to the picture says ‘Meet the joker, one-on-one with Batman’s new nemesis!