The Changing Faces of Jennifer Lopez Analysis

  AB 

C D

Denotation

Connotation

Picture A: White background White and red text Models hair slicked and tied back Model is half smiling Dress style Red lipstick Picture B: Red colours and red costume Warm lighting Revealing costume Picture C: Bikini costume Sanded floors and blue background Pouting facial expression Picture D: Two twin babies Smile revealing teeth

Picture A: A white background is used to allow the main model, Jennifer Lopez, to stand out and be the main focus on the front cover. White and red font is used throughout to adhere to the house style of the magazine to allow the magazine is be visually professional and tidy throughout. Jennifer Lopez’s hair is slicked and tied back to prevent any imperfection to allow her to look sophisticated and professional like the fashion that is being advertised throughout the magazine. The model’s facial expression is a half-smile to show both her fun yet classy side in a single pose.  The model’s dress reveals only her shoulder and chest as a means to appeal to the male audience in an appealing way yet the dress still appeals to the female audience as they wish to dress similar to her. Picture B: The entire front cover uses red and orange colours to follow a consistent house style which is also repeated in the costume of the cover model to further show consistency. The red and orange colours also give off a warm lighting effect that causes the lights to reflect of the model’s body like that of the sun; this connotes a beach setting. The dress Jennifer Lopez is wearing exposes her cleavage as a means to appeal to the minority of the secondary audience, being male, who will see her as being sexually attractive. Picture C: The cover model is wearing only a bikini top and pants which allows the male readers to visualise her in similar clothes to that of her underwear; this presents her as a sex icon to this side of the audience resulting in them purchasing the magazine purely for the visual side. The floors are sanded and the background is blue to make the set appear as a beach to relate back to the costume of the model herself as she wearing a bikini. The cover model’s facial expression is fixed into a pout as means to appear seductive to the male audience. Picture D: The cover model, Jennifer Lopez, is cradling two babies, one dressed in pink and one dressed in blue (to connote one is a girl and the other a boy) and is smiling into the camera using direct mode of address. The model’s smile reveals her teeth to show her genuine happiness with her new babies and the use of direct mode of address shows that she is appealing directly at the audience to project her happiness. White lighting is used to emphasise a new, pure tone given off from the arrival of new born babies.

 Analysing the tools and effects used on the front cover of magazines will allow me to adapt these skills for my own magazine front cover, however, a suitable adaptation for my target audience.