Identifying the Connotations of Hip Hop Connection

These two magazines follow the Hip Hop/ rap genre. The connotations of these two magazines are that the mastheads on them both are bold, the lower case and upper case letters are the same height and it is only one colour. It is usually a bold colour; in these two magazines it is red and white which are two colours which can be identified as masculine. The colour of the masthead changes which is very rare within a magazine. The masthead also looks quite original as one of “Connection” is placed in “Hop” vertically. Also beneath the masthead is very small text which states “’88 to ’08: The Worlds Original Rap Magazine”.
The skyline is similar as it is offering “Free CD” and the artist who has created the CD on offer is in the image cover. The maximum colours used for the texts are just two colours; for one it is red and grey and for the other it is white and yellow. These colours are all very bold and stand out. The fonts are the same; they are fonts with sans serif but the font for the mast head is not san serif which makes it stand out more because it's much clearer. Most of the text is located on the right because on the left there is an image of the cover of a CD.
The angle of the image is front on making eye contact to the camera. In addition the cover image is covering the masthead because the magazine is very well known which suggests that due to the connotations the magazine is easily recognisable and doesn’t rely upon the masthead to identify the magazines. The image is of very famous Hip Hop artists; Snoop Dog, The Game, 2Pac. Also the background of the image is either just one colour or quite plain so it doesn’t drown out the other elements of the magazine. The pose of the artists are very 'gangsta' and cool such as The Game holding his hat at a tilt. He is also dressed smartly but with an edgy style as he doesn't have his tie tied around his neck buy hanging loosely and his tattoos are showing which also looks very cool and original. In contrast to the Q magazine (from previous posts) which had a Great Britain flag, the Hip Hop Connection magazine has The Game standing in front of the American flag which shows the heritage of the artist. The barcode is located on the bottom right-hand corner and next to it is text which starts off with just one word on one line then the lines get longer. There isn't much text which suggests that the target audience is teenagers who are more likely to be attracted to the magazine by the cover image.