Magazine Genre Research - Food

The cover layout of a food magazine tends to have a large picture of a food dish taking up most of the surface area with text and other information bordering the food, shifting much of the focus onto the food rather than the text surrounding it. The colors for the background and text are typically colors that complement the look of the food, so a food dish with say red and dark red coloring like a cranberry dish on a thanksgiving magazine, would have slightly darker and most likely red and black color pallets for the coloring of the background and text; using contrasting colors for the cover such as a neon green color for something like a sirloin steak could be off putting and make the look of the food portrayed less appealing. From the magazine that I've looked through, it appears that advertisements take up about 60-75 percent of the total space with either whole pages dedicated to them, or small ads that are put in the corners of the pages; much of the ads come in between the pages detailing the food, typically in groups of a few pages. Pretty much all of the photos, aside from the advertisements, are pictures of food portrayed in a way to make them look as appealing as possible with the food after it was cooked, placed typically on plates or in bowls that are a little out of the ordinary or wouldn't really be used in a typical dinner to exemplify the look of the food, along with the dishes being laid out in a way for the visual appeal of the viewer, an example of this is if there is a recipe for a spaghetti recipe, there may be a bowl with pretty designs, with the spaghetti swirled around, a little scoop of sauce on top, and a perfect square of butter laid in the center. Overall, the main part of food magazines seems to be to make the food as enticing as possible for the reader in order to sway them to make the dishes and buy the next issue in order to learn more recipe.