Lesson 13 - Analysing different music magazines

5th November

In this lesson I looked at different music magazines of different genres in order to gather information and ideas for my coursework.

First of all, I looked at different magazines, their front pages, chode contents and double page spreads. I did this in order to compare the ways in which different genres of music present their magazine.

I looked at 'Q' and 'Kerrang' magazine first because they are similar to the genre of magazine that I would like to create for my coursework.

Analysing the front cover

Kerrang:

'Kerrang' tends to use mid shots for the front covers of musicians that have a main feature in the magazine. This is effective as the muscicans are usually looking in to the camera which may encourage people to buy it.

There is use of smaller images around the magazine in order to show what else is in the content. The same colour scheme is used for the magazine, that being the use of the colours of red, white and black.

Q:

'Q' is a magazine that also uses a constistant front cover style. The colours used are white, red and black.  The magazine varies in the types of camera shots that are used on the front cover. This is done in order to portray different attitudes towards the characters. The target audience for this magazine tends to be people that like the genre of rock. We can tell this due to the seriousness of the expressions of the people in the pictures.

Analysing the Contents page

Kerrang:

There is continuity of the contents page as the same fonts are used throughout the magazine on the front cover and contents page. The colour scheme of yellow and black is used. The magazine tends to use many pictures on the top half of the magazine with the pages and their numbers on the bottom half. 'Kerrang' is a thin magazine, therefore there isn't too much text on the page, however the amount of pictures make up for it.

Q:

Due to 'Q' being a montly magazine, it has a lot more pages and information in it. There tends to be more text on the contents page for this magazine because of the amount of pages there are. The same colour scheme and fonts from the front page are the same to show continuity. This makes it look more professional.

Looking at a double page spread

Kerrang:

When 'Kerrang' has a feature or interview that spreads out over a double page, the editors always use small font and large pictures. This is because of the in depth interviews that 'Kerrang' have with the musicians. There is normally a photoshoot which can extend the interview over three to four pages. A negative about the small font is that it can be quite hard to read; however the dark backgrounds and white font make it slightly easier to read. The small font may put off all kinds of readers from wanting to buy the magazine. In order to emphasise the double page spread, cleverly, the editors set it out so that there is one large image spread over two pages like the one below:

           

  

Q:

'Q' is another magazine that uses a lot of text and one or two big images from a photoshoot. Having a lot of text shows that there is a detailed interview which will encourage readers to buy the magazine. If that artist was a favourite of the target audience, they would want to buy the magazine in order to read about them. In a edition I have been analysing, I can see that the magazine has continuity in the style of photo that has been taken in the photoshoot. Here are images of the front cover of 'Q' magazine and the interview with Noel Gallagher:

When creating my magazine, I need to think whether I would want to design it based on a large or thin magazine. At the moment, I think that I would like to design a contents page that has more images than text as I believe it would appeal to more people of my target audience. Also, I will take a lot of pictures myself when I attend concerts.

I must be careful when taking my picture for the front cover of the magazine as I need to think in detail who I want the target audience to be. For my initial ideas, I am thinking of having the lead singer of a band which will show that there is an interview with her inside. This will then be my double page spread.