Textual Analysis of Inked Magazine Front Cover

This is a front cover of a tattoo magazine called Inked from December 2012. It features Travis
Barker, a well-known drummer from the band Blink182 on the cover; he is in an aggressive stance
with his fists clenched together and appears topless to show off his tattoos. There is a plain and
simple background showing a wooden structured wall painted white. The magazines masthead
appears in the top left of the magazine and it selling line appears just below. There are various cover
lines below the masthead although these only appear on the left hand side of the magazine.
With Travis to the right of the image and the cover lines and masthead lay out on the Left hand side
of the magazine this gives a clear division so there is no overlapping is seen as clean cut. The position
he is in can be seen as intimidating the way his hands are clenched centre of his body and also that
he is topless showing the full extent of his tattoos. As this is a tattoo magazine this is why he is
dressed minimalistic so people can see his tattoos but his position hides some to an extent. As for
the intimidating posse it could match to the stereotypical tattooed person aka aggressive and
rebellious or it could be his own choice of posse maybe showing the underdog due to his
background and now he is world famous so he had to fight for it.
The fount used for the masthead is very traditional style of typography in tattooing could be similar
to gothic calligraphy which has a massive impact with the surrounding white background makes it
stand out and again this magazine is aiming it at a specific audience. The selling line is in the same
fount as the cover lines and the masthead is the only different fount used the selling line CULTURE.
STYLE. ART. Is short and punctual the use of capital letters suggest a power within these words and
the use of a full stop after every word shows thats all that matters in this magazine , but also the
word choice of it can seem classy as such its trying to show tattoos are pieces of art which is a
conflicting matter.
The cover line font consists of two colours black and red these colours can be seen as aggressive so
the suit the image well and in front of the white background it has full impact the main cover line
says TRAVIS BARKER showing this is their main feature article and the fount of this is largely bigger
than the other found of the cover lines but splitting up the cover lines giving a clear division between
each topic is a small black thin line just the break the text up, They use the bold version of the text of
cover lines to high light important cover lines such as STEVIE WILLIAMS and AGNOSTIC FROUNT
the last cover line is printed in red with the word exclusive highlighted in yellow and the red cover
line says The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Graphic Novel so this would appeal to readers.

Textual Analysis of Inked Magazine Front Cover