Front cover research

Kerrang!

Issue: No 1159 19th May 2007

Price: £2.10

Images: Main photograph is the background. It’s three people from the band who are the main article. Three smaller images of other bands.

Good: The appearance of the band shows a stereotype which advertises the magazine as a rock magazine.

Bad: There’s 12 people on the front cover which makes it look a bit too busy.

Colours: Red, white and black.

Good: It’s simple and compiments the colour photos. It would look to crowded with any more colours.

Language:

Good: Puns used such as ‘Unfold the puzzle of life’ which plays on the bands album ‘Puzzle’ and song ‘Unfolded stars. Also ‘Hayley starts a riot!’ is a pun on Hayley Williams’ album riot.

Bad: You wouldn’t get the play on words unless you knew the artists and they’re music.

Text:

Good: Bold and simple, which looks good as fancy fonts would get lost amongst all the photographs. Big, white ‘Biffy Clyro’ stands out a lot.

Free Stuff: Posters.

Layout:

Good: Colours behind the text help make it stand out in front of the images. By placing most of the articles at the bottom makes look tidy and easy to read.

Bad: Although having the articles at the bottom makes it a tidy layout, I think there’s too many articles so its a bit crowded.

NME

Issue: 3 March 2007

Price: £1.99

Images: The Gossip are the main image and there are 3 smaller photographs of other bands and artists

Good: The main image focuses on Beth Ditto whilst two boys from her band stand behind her and look on. Although she’s in darker clothing, her red lipstick and ‘bling’ attracts attention and is a reflection on her and her lifestyle. There is an image of someone with their mouth open looking angry like they’re shouting. It goes well with the text ‘The Killers sink their teeth in’. Also The Killers aren’t known as a trouble making rebellious band so it’s interesting to see the frontman looking angry and slagging off other bands.

Bad: Some of the photos look ammature and are too smal so you can’t see them properly which isn’t helped by the main image obstucting them.

Colours: Red, yellow, black and white.

Good: It’s a simple colour scheme and is the same as the logo so the magazine is even more recognisable and familiar to the public. Red can represent anger and passion which could relate to the genre of music of this magazine. Black is a very morbid, mysterious colour and could represent darker music and lyrics. Also black is very popular especially in fashion in the ‘alternative scene’. The splashes of yellow stand out and seperate the articles.

Language:

Good: ‘Sex’ is used and it is very modern to have it on a front cover of a magazine. This shows that the magazine is aimed at a younger audience as you find that a lot of people in the older generation would be shocked by it. Although ‘punks’ could be seen as a stereotype, by placing it on the front cover it advertises the type of music you could find in here and if you are a punk or into the punk scene you might be interested in this article. There is a quote taken from Noel Galagher which says ‘Sorry, I was wrong about the Klaxons’. This is quite a shocker if you know Noel’s reputation because he’s known as quite a rebel with a big mouth. By seeing this quote it makes you want to read the magazine and find out what he’s said. Another quote like this is on there which is basically the opposite. Brandon Flowers from the band The Killers says ‘Green Day offend me’ this is shocking becausde he isn’t known as a rebel and is seen as a good boy. Again this lures the reader who would want to find out why Green Day who are a respected very famous band have offended him.

Text:

Good: ‘The Gossip’ is in different font from the rest of the page, but it’s still big and bold and the white makes it stand out. Everything is simple, capitals and different colours.

Bad: I think they could have used one other font.

Free Stuff: None.

Layout:

Good: The page is busy and makes the magazine look like it’s jam packed with articles. There are box outs in different colours to seperate articles and make sure text and images don’t get lost on the main image.

Background:

Most is the main photo, but behind them is just plain white. It’s good because the rest is quite busy and it fits in with the colour scheme.

Issue: June 2008

Price: £4.20

Images: A blonde girl in a bikini and sunglasses at the beach.

Good: People usually associate holidays and sun, sea and sand with good times. People will look at this cover and want to be the girl on the front. Ibiza is a very popular destination and renowned for its clubbing so this corresponds well with the genre of this music magazine. Another thing that makes it good is that the model is not anyone famous making you think that could be you and you don’t need to be a rich celebrity to go to this place.

Colours: Blue, pink & white.

Good: The blue sea and sky looks idlyic making you want to be there. The pink writing coordinates well with the models bikini and sunglasses.

Language:

Good: This front cover talks about ‘The new rules and how to break them’. Again, it’s human curiosity that makes you want to rebel and be a little naughty sometimes. The festivals are described as ‘carnage’ which isn’t in this case a bad word and means lots of exciting and crazy things going on. Aswell as the inviting image on the front cover Mixmag are also saying they can give you money off on flights to Ibiza this would make the reader want to get the magazine even more.

Text:

Good: The pink is very bold and eye catching. ‘Ibiza is Go’ is in the same font as the other front cover and it’s suitable for a dance magazine.

Bad: Some of the text is too small.

Free Stuff: CD advertised on the top left.

Layout:

Good: Because the background is quite busy it looks good with only a few articles on it, also the text is on a slant again.

Bad: The CD blocks some of the words on the front cover.

Background: Blue sea and sky with an airplane.

Good: You can tell straight away it’s to do with Ibiza and holidays and it’s an inviting.

In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazines?

My music magazine uses forms of existing magazines by using similar styles and fonts as existing successful magazines like Kerrang!. My magazine uses plain fonts that have been modified with brushes and erasing pieces of the text in order to achieve a rebellious, eroded look. The front cover uses a black and yellow hazard tape which could be translated into a danger zone that the magazine is, e.g its only for people who like a certain type of music, rock, and usually the people who like rock music tend to think they are "Hardcore" because they listen to it. My magazine has used a Polaroid boarder for my smaller images on the front cover which can be understood as the writers have been to themselves to the gigs to take those photographs so they know what they are talking about, it could also make a personal connection to the audience as they have not used any backstage passes so they get a real feel with the bands audience and the intended show. Many other magazines have a very professional tone when interviewing a band but my magazine does not and has a normal talk with them, one the audience can understand and wanted the ask the questions themselves. My front cover is slightly unlike other music magazines of the same genre e.g. Kerrang! This is because of the not over-excessive use of photographs and information. i have not tried to cram as much information as possible onto the front page, i have instead put simple and to-the-point information. This is good as it does not overwhelm my audience with information but still shows what is in the magazine.

How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?

My music magazine represents a younger audience that would be interested in rock music. they would be into a trendy style of clothing. The social group that would read my magazine is a youthful audience that is just interested in real music opinions. The audience are interested in gigs and shows of their favorite bands, the magazine will give them gig lists and contacts to get hold of tickets. This would cater to their need of liking shows and the magazine would give opinions and rate the shows so they know they will not be wasting their money when they choose what band to see live. My magazine would include free things like a sample CD of a bands new single, a discount voucher for a gig or a poster. The interviews on my magazine would be with bands my audience that have interest with and would not include artists or bands like Rihanna, as my audience would not have any interest in her music, the bands they would be interested in are bands like Metallica, Slipknot or AC/DC. The social group that has been represented in my magazine is a group that does take time out of their own schedule and life to go and see a show, even if they are not interested in the band a great deal. The representation is shown through the unorthodox way i have arrange the conventions of my magazine, The strap line is not at the top and bottom of the magazine, instead it is in the centre of my magazine. The colours and fonts i have used to represent my magazine are black and yellow, i have also used a grey for the background of my main photograph on the front page, this is because i wanted to create an industrial look on the front of my magazine. The fonts i have used for my front cover are simple but i have used a complicated and eroded font for the band names to reflect their style of music, e.g. Slipknot used a strong eroded font and Hadouken! have used a futuristic font. Magazines usually have a double page spread, mine also does but contains more writing than images. This causes the reader to focus on the writing, i have written two different types of articles, one is a gig review and the other is an interview. This gives the reader a chance to choose a article that applies to them or even have more to read if they are a huge fan of the band. The gig review give a personal impression of the actual gig from the crowd and not from backstage which give a personal feel to the magazine and the interview give the reader an insight into the bands mindset and what they are like in person.

What kind of institution would describe your magazine and why?

My magazine would be a biweekly magazine so it would not be on expensive paper, and would be relatively short. This frequent release of my magazine would assist to it being up to date with the news and goings-on in the music world. The magazine would be an A4 size magazine, this would allow me to put a lot of article and features in the magazine and also be able to put a vast amount of ads without spoiling the magazine. The size of the magazine would be good as it will be noticeable off the shelf. The magazine would be sold on newsstand and outside show venues e.g. Camden, as it is the centre for upcoming bands and rock style music on the UK. The culture in Camden would be ideal to market my magazine as it will be cheap but include free things like posters etc that the audience will be interested in. my magazine could also be distributed by news agents as many fans of rock music and a similar magazine, Kerrang!, are using news agents to buy the magazines as it is on the way to work as they don’t have the time to go to a newsstand or outside a show. Distributing the magazine outside of a show would be advantageous as the people who go to shows usually have some spare money to buy t-shirt and souvenirs, my magazine is only £2, so this would be appealing to them as they would have some spare money left over from the show and the souvenirs bought. The magazine would be on the shelf in many retailers including supermarkets, news-agents and market stalls.

Who would be the audience for your music magazine.

The audience of my music magazine would be an audience aged 15-29, this is because the usual age for people to attend rock shows and gigs is this age. The music style may also not appeal to a mature audience or a young audience. The desired target audience age is teens to young adults. The household income would be around 15,000 or more as the magazine would be cheap and affordable for most ages on an allowance, or a poorly paid job. Their time would be taken up by studying or listening to music so my magazine would be ideal with its short interviews and to-the-point articles. I used a Black and yellow theme for my magazine to deviate away from the Gothic style of the usual rock magazines. The audience would be apart of a particular social group that tends to keep to itself, its very close to music and is very different to other people. They have a wide range of ages but mainly focused around teenagers to young adults, this means that you have a wide range of ways to advertise and appeal to the target audience. The audience would have a big interest in the music industry and will even be interested in new and upcoming bands, this would be a feature in my magazine and the audience would want to find out about them as they like to listen to bands before everyone else knows about them and they become mainstream. The audience would be interested in video-video games so i know what kind of adverts to include in my magazine.

How did you attract/address the audience for your music publication?

There are multiple ways of attracting an audience for my music magazine. One of the most successful is freebies. These free things that came with the magazine encourage the reader to buy the magazine as they feel that they are getting something extra for their money. Interviews and gossip are also very important as the reader loves to know about their favourite stars personal lives. Free posters are also very appealing as the target audience is usually decorating their rooms with posters of various things they like, the people i asked were in the target audience all agreed with this.In my magazine i have used informal language to connect with the readers as they would understand the language and relate to the magazine on a personal level. I attracted my audience by using simplicity, this makes my magazine not challenging and too big for a reader, they would feel comfortable with it as it would contain language that they understand and would be able to connect with the magazine. The masthead has a simple shape but it is teamed with the eroded look, this could reflect the readers personality. The use of mis-en-scen is used with the guitar and the clothes the band is wearing on the front cover. the guitar is not flashy, it is a matt black colour and looks rough. the clothes the band are wearing are casual and not expensive, clothes everyone would wear. The front cover of my magazine looks very different and stands out, this will appeal to my target audience as it reflects them as they listen to "underground" music that is not very mainstream.

What have your learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When i was creating this magazine i used the programme Adobe Photoshop, this was a valuable tool that i used in the creation of my magazine, e.g. to create the photograph Polaroid boarders. The front cover was created by using Photoshop as it allowed me to use multiple layers to perfectly edit and place certain aspect and features of my magazine. The contents page was also created with Photoshop and was a huge help as it allowed my to arrange the features of the made in a certain way, the biggest help was the ability to change the transparency of my photos and background. The double page feature spread was made using apple pages, this allowed me to have a easy to use template to create a effective feature. This was my first time using pages to i have learned a great deal about the program pages. Pages allowed me to write articles very easily but the fact that it was only available on a mac limited my usage of it. The article has pictures, when i placed them it was very easy to move the text to make room for them, this would have been much more difficult if i had not done it on pages. The cameras i used were handheld digital cameras which allowed me to be very mobile with the camera and change the camera angles easily as it was so small. A problem with the camera was i needed to take many shots but it did not have enough memory on the cameras, this forced me to keep uploading my photographs to the computer steadily.

Looking back at your preliminary task, of designing a front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In the preliminary task of creating a school magazine i felt that i have learnt how to produce a magazine much faster and to a better standard. The music magazine had much more freedom to create a magazine that appeals to a wider audience rather than a set age and school. I have learnt how to use computer programs much better than i did before which could explain why my music magazine is so much better than my school magazine. The progression from the school magazine to the full product caused me to learn much more about the computer programs that i used and also the features of the magazine and how they work better together on one magazine than another. Colours used in the title, black, are based on the shadowy culture of the music. The gigs the bands play are usually set in a very dark stage and even the clothes that most of the bands wear are fully black. I have learned more about camera angles and action shots, these provide the photos on the magazine with a more exciting look. I have even used more instruments and even drums in my shots to fully accentuate the band and their direction in music. The school magazine's shots i took were set in a school corridor with a lot of mis-en-scen e.g. the posters and a "school looking" hallway with multiple doors. The bands photographs were in a stage with a black curtain background, and another with a industrial concrete background. I used the concrete background to show the "hardcore" style of their rock music, the guitar in the photo is black and not shiny, this is because it is supposed to be rough and hard. This is a change from a school magazine as i had the resources at hand when i was creating a school magazine yet when i was creating a music magazine i had to gather the props faster and there were more of them.