Main image: Like all magazines, ‘Sight & sound’ has a large image that takes up most of the front cover in order to attract the audience. This image is a chainsaw which represents one of the biggest horror films of all time ‘the Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. This image also fits with the selling line ‘the return of real horror’. The selling line can also influence people to watch the film if they haven’t to see what a ‘real’ horror film is like. The red paint which represents blood is used in the front cover because blood is one of the main conventions in a horror film and also in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. By having a white background, the blood is more recognizable towards the audience which can attract the audience from far off. This is a connotation to a typical convention of a horror film. ‘Sight & Sound’ is known to be an influential magazine and by saying that ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ is a real horror will promote the film even more and help to endorse it. Masthead: The masthead font for ‘Sight & Sound’ is in bold and big writing which stands out to the viewers. The colours used are very effective but yet simple and help make it easy to read. The masthead is one of the main aspects of a magazine so it needs to be bold in order for there target audience to recognize the title. This font size for 'Sight & Sound' is bold enough to be recognized by its target audience and other readers, on the other hand it is not creative and distinctive than other film magazines such as "Empire". As the Masthead lacks creativity, this can decrease the number of reader they receive than Empire and therefore lower there sales. However, because "sight & sound" is aimed at the older, mature readers than having the masthead like this will be suitable for there specific target audience.
Selling line: ‘The return of real horror’ – This is telling the reader that when you read the article, they will gain a greater understand about the film and the history of American cinema, especially there horror films. This will make the readers eager to want to read this magazine, especially if there are horror fans, because the selling line doesn’t say what ‘real’ horror film is returning which keeps the reader in suspense. With the font size, they gain emphasis on the word "Horror" which notifies the reader that the concept of the magazine is about horror films. They decide to keep the font and the font colour the same so that it doesn't get confusing in the eyes of the reader and keep it organize and sophisticated as the target audience is aimed at old and mature readers.
Cover lines: At the bottom of the ‘sight & sound’ magazine front, there are cover lines at the bottom written in the same colour as the blood and one cover line written in the same colour as the main title. Instead of filling the front cover with different types of colours, which usually attract readers, they decided to keep the colour to a minimal which makes the magazine more sophisticated and classy. The cover lines is there in order to encourage the reader to purchase this magazine and read it, so the magazine will want to write exclusive and exciting cover lines in order to attract the readers. Sight and Sound wrote three cover lines which should be enough as too much cover lines would spoil the surprise of the reader because they would already know what to expect inside the magazine.
Barcode: The magazine is priced at £3.25 which is cheaper than there competitors such as ‘Empire’. Since ‘sight & sound‘ is not as popular as there competitors, it is smart to make there magazine price lower then there competitors so that the readers that don't have enough disposable income will be more interested to purchase ‘sight and sound’ rather than 'Empire'. The barcode is one of the least important thing in the magazine, hence the reason why it is small and to the side of the magazine. When pricing the magazine, they had think about the target audience and whether they can be able to afford the magazine weekly. As there target audience is aimed at the older generation, they set the magazine at a cheap price because they will most likely have a lower disposable income because they may be on there pension or retired.
