Research of Music Magazines

Looking at all of these popular music magazine covers I can evediently see that red is the prominant colour used, the colour red is a vibrant and powerful colour. It also has many connotations which consist of Active, invigorating, exciting, powerful, strong, energetic, attractive, dominating, these are the postive aspects of the colour red and is the reason why red is used to attract the audience.

Another similarity is the direction of gaze. All the models are looking directly into the camera. This helps the reader to engage with the model and attracts the reader to buying the magazine.

The cover lines are all bold and postioned in a slightly un tidy fashion. This is a common convention of a music magazine, the rough, un tidy look appeals to the target audience for music magzines, unlike beauty magazine that are much more tidy and structured. I also think that the untidyness makes the page more exciting to look at.

There are also small insert images used to show that the inside is just as interesting as the front. These images are quite small which makes the reader want to see the large sized image. There is also the use of stickers, this design is quite quirky and adds interest to the page. Also, each magazine has a bar code and a price on it.

I shall interpret these design features into my magazine.

Circulation of all music magazines

 

NME Magazine analysis

General
The magazine NME has been a popular music magazine since it was first published in 1952. The magazine is highly recognizable and specialises in the genre of contemporary music. The common reader of this magazine is at an average age of 25 and is male, the target an audience of men aged 17-30. The magazine is published weekly at the price of £2.30; the producers of the magazine are IPC ignite. The Circulation is 56,284 and the Readership 411,000, this shows that there is a high popularity of the magazine and that there is a high amount of readers in comparison to buyers, this implies that one magazine that is brought is shared between few others.

The majority of readers agree that music is an important part of their lives, 63% specially choose to listen to indie/guitar bands and 79% like to listen to new bands.

The inside of the magazine is specifically designed to satisfy the target market (17- 30 men). The pages are similar to newspaper articles. The number of pages in total is 66 and the number of pages of adverts is 20.

Front cover analysis (of the middle magazine shown above):

• The title of the magazine is NME. This title is well known in the music industry and stands for ‘New Music Express’. The title is highly recognisable and connotes the rock genre of music, as the TV channel NME is a rock genre music channel.
• There is no apparent logo on the magazine. However, the title acts as the logo as it is a highly recognisable and on each magazine cover ‘NME’ title is always the same in colour, size etc.
• There is no strap line of this particular cover is the name of the band on the front cover which is ‘Them Crooked Vultures’. The text is in sans serif and is in large font that draws attention to the words.
• The main image of the front cover is of a new band named ‘Them crooked Vultures’. The band contains three members, who in the image are all standing wearing casual clothes. The man on the right hand side of the image is looking directly at the camera this enables the reader to have a personal connection with the band. Also, the man on the right hand side of the photo is clearly shown whereas the other two are slightly blurred, this implies that the man on the right is the main, most important part of the band, he also has a tattoo which is clearly shown, and this implies that the genre of the music is rock, as tattoos are usually associated with rock. The colour of their clothing is quite muted, blue and greys, this takes away the attention from what they are wearing and emphases the faces so that the reader can clearly recognise them.
• The other image used on this cover is a small photograph on the right hand corner of a band member in the ban, Muse. The photo appears to be cropped to emphases the band member jumping in the air whilst playing guitar, this adds movement to the look and makes the cover visually exciting. The background of the photo is simple black surrounding this again emphasises the band member. The image has a small white border around it to separate from the main image.
• The cover lines promote the main article and features of the magazine. Some of the cover lines are shown at the bottom of the page, and are introduced with the title ‘Plus’, having extra text at the bottom of the cover implies that there is a lot of information in the magazine. Another part that promotes the inside of the magazine is shown in a white circle that gives the effect of a sticker. On the white circle is text that promotes ‘Seven new rock and roll films’, it does not describe them as that is what is shown on the inside of the magazine. The top of the magazine describes the other image, stating that inside the image is shown in a larger scale.
• The typefaces are all very simple, sans serif. The colours vary from, white, red and black. These colours are also depicted form the main image that makes it all tie in together. Graphics are used to emphasise the piece of text that states ‘World exclusive first interview’. The graphic used for this part is a border design. The design is scrolled and has a red ribbon effect, this makes the words look sophisticated and of high importance.
• The type of language used is informal, and simple. The writing is in brief statements instead of sentences; this makes it easy to read and is appropriate to the type of reader that would read NME.
• NME magazine is very similar to the music magazine ‘Kerrang!’ they both have a recognizable title and use a large main image of a certain band. Kerrang is also a rock genre music magazine so the layout is similar to ‘Q magazine’; this is also a rock genre music magazine. Q has a distinctive title that is in red and white, which is extremely alike to NME.

Preliminary Task

Brief
Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP.

Photographs
I began this task by producing several photographs, in which I choose one to go on the front cover. I didn’t realise how much of a challenge this was going to be. When taking a photo there are many elements that you have to take on board such as the background, the lighting or the product. I knew that I wanted the shot to be of the 'Head girl' sixth former. So, I got my friend to dress up smart and stand outside school! I took various photos and resulted in a medium close of the model, my friend, standing in the school grounds. The model is standing in front of a tree and in the far background is the school building. This adds depth to the photo, instead of just having a plain background.
Once I found my photo, I began editting it in Photoshop.

Front cover
Once I had completely edited my photo I began with the front cover. I created this using the program InDesign. Firstly i had to come up with a title for the magazine. I wanted it to be fairly simple and relate to the school. So, I choose the title to be the schools initials, WGSG. This is a recognisable abbreviation, and in order to make it clear what the publication was about I decided that I would add a small caption, underneath the title, that would state 'Sixth Form Magazine'.

I then added the school badge onto the front cover of the magazine to again make it clear that is a school magazine. The colours of the badge are light blue ad maroon. This therefore made the decision of font colour easy as I decided to use the light blue colour. This colour font applies to the Title and to the sub title. The content description is in Black as the colour is more prominent on the background of that particular part.

Content Page

The content was also created in InDesign and uses the same colours and font type as the front cover in order to maintain house style. The photograph used is of the same person on the front and implies that there is a section to read about this person in the magazine. There is a column that explains ‘What’s Inside’ and all the content is listed in black font with the page numbers in the light blue colour. The layout is easy to read and provides a simple understanding of what the magazine has to offer inside.