Front Covers - Men's magazine

Men's Health is a self explanatory magazine, aimed at men with a health-orientated mentality. The front cover features strong, bold colours - red, blue, white and black, with some uses of a neon yellow. These are primary colours, with red bringing connotations of strength, blood, masculinity and passion. 

Masthead

The masthead is in a bold, bright red font, which make it stand out drastically against the white backdrop. The name of the magazine, 'Men's Health' is self explanatory, with the reinforcement that this is a magazine aimed for men. It seems to be a rather well known magazine, as the main image of the front cover overlaps the masthead, a feature found in the more known magazines.

Main Image

The main image of this front cover consists of a well-built young man, smiling at the camera and viewer. The man is wearing swimming shorts, and the beach waves seen in the background reinforce the context. The man's body (especially abs) are shown off, as a body with defined muscles is a sign of health, vital for this magazine of which health is a main focus. It may also be to advertise the main cover line 'Build a beach body', with the model in the main image acting as an example. Interestingly, the photograph is black and white, instead of in colour. This may be to make the use of colourful fonts grab more attention from the viewer than the photo.

Cover lines and puffs

The main cover line for this front cover is 'Build a beach body', in a black, bold font and capital letters. It anchors the main image, where the model is in a beach setting. It also goes together with the monochrome palette of the main image. The puffs on this front cover feature a lot of plosive and dynamic words, which reinforce the target audience for this magazine - it is stereotypically assumed that men enjoy action, violence and power, and words such as 'burn' and 'turbocharge' add a punch to reading the cover lines. The 'burn fat fast with chilli' is a cover line which raises enigmas and hooks the reader in, as they are intrigued to know how chilli can burn fat. It also adds to the stereotypical assumption that men would eat spicy food, and chilli is an extreme example of such food. The cover line at the bottom of the cover, '6 quick ways to turbocharge your sex drive' attracts the reader's attention as it satisfies all four criteria of the uses and gratifications theory to some extent: the cover line uses a direct mode of address to the reader, and supports the personal identity criteria of the theory; it promises information on improving sex to be more enjoyable, which then allows the reader to talk about these '6 ways' to their friends by making them feel superior for having such knowledge. The audience of the magazine is shown through this cover line to include men who are in a relationship, and possibly married. One more puff I found interesting is 'fix a crook back', which widens the audience the magazine is aiming at, as men who are more likely to have back problems would be of an older age. And unlike the other puffs which focus on physical appearance, this one mediates more around overall health, helping the magazine to stay true to it's masthead.
It's worth noting that the puffs focus on only the reader: for example, the 'build a beach body' doesn't include text to suggest that it will help the reader gain attention of the opposite sex, and the '6 ways to turbocharge your sex drive' cover line doesn't focus on improving the sex life for the partner as well as the reader. Thus, it may be argued that the magazine is subtly aimed at more self-centered people. However, this could be argued with the cover line 'live to 120 (and love every minute!)' which contradicts this. This cover line strongly supports loving life and oneself, and promotes for the reader to gain more self esteem. So it also shows that this magazine intends to attract the attention of those who wish to be not only healthy on the outside, but maintain their mental heath in good condition as well, for men who both feel confident, or wish to feel more confident about themselves.