In July of 2014, the National Geographic issued a magazine with a small boy on the front cover. The boy looked to be three or four years old and he has red and black war paint on his face. It is such a powerful image; it draws extensive attention to the magazine. In America, a small child is automatically associated with innocence and purity. They shouldn’t know what hatred and war are. In this image, however, this little boy is painted up to go to war. There is such a violent contrast that it draws a consumer’s eyes straight into the little boy’s eyes. This is the pathos that is connected with this particular cover art. A person looking to buy a magazine might see a little boy who is in a situation that he shouldn’t be in and sympathize with that child. Whether they realize it or not, the person looking to buy this magazine had some kind of emotional connection to the toddler on the front cover.
The toddler on the front has a very stone-like stature. He does not express a single emotion, rather a quite mysterious look. The designer of the front cover cropped everything out of the picture except for the boy’s face. This technique is clever in the way that it draws in the potential magazine purchaser by only focusing on the face and leaving it to the receiver as to what emotion the little boy is expressing. The colors on the boy contradict his young age. Red and black are two very symbolic colors; they represent power and passion—desire and rage. These are not typical emotions related to a toddler. This, again, adds to the draw to the boy and wanting to figure out his story; all ways of drawing in someone to purchase the magazine.
The National Geographic magazine is widely purchased all around the world. It features several highly recognized journalists and trusted scientists to create each monthly publication. The ethos surrounding this