Music Magazine Analysis

Front covers, contents pages, and double page spreads

DATE and PRICE is written in the top corner in a small font because this isn’t important and doesn’t need to stand out. The price of £ 2.20 tells us which social class the target audience belongs to.

The MASTERHEAD uses a big and bold white font that stands out because of the red background. It is also very simple and informal.

The MAIN IMAGE is a close up studio shot of the artist Florence looking straight into the camera connecting with the audience. Her red hair is eye-catching and fills the frame making a background for the text. The only other colours are black and white. Florence’s makeup is simple and natural and her skin is clean, something that makes the appearance of the cover clear and simple.

The LAYOUT is very clean and minimalistic with a colour scheme of three different colours. The red colour draws attention without to much going on in the cover. The absence of lots of cover- lines and etc. makes the magazine more appealing.

The MAIN COVER LINE is simple and stands out because it is written in a big, bold and black font appealing to people who know this artist.

The QUOTE tells the audience there is an interview with the artist and is supposed to make them curious.

COVERLINES summarizes the contents to entice the audience to read the magazine.

The SUB HEADING tells the audience that this is a new special edition cover making it more interesting and appealing.

In the MAIN IMAGE we can see a medium long shot of pop star Katy Perry in front of a pink background. She is covered in pink and yellow flowers and her dress and makeup is very stereotypically feminine. This tells us that the target audience are female, maybe late teens and young adults, because this is something they can relate to. Katy Perry is the main focus on the cover and is looking directly into the camera to attract the audience’s attention to this magazine.

The MASTERHEAD is bold and black with colour filled ‘a’ and ‘o’ making it stand out on the cover.

The LAYOUT is clear but full of bright colours. The colour- scheme consists of pink, black and some yellow and white. The subtle pink colour is eye-catching and associated with femininity and appeals to the female gender. The black is contrasting to the black making it really stand out on the cover.

The DATE font is very small to not stand out

The COVER LINES are supposed to entice the audience and make them want to read what’s inside.

The MAIN COVER LINE is drawing attention with the big black font appealing to the audience, who most likely know Katy Perry.The white cover line underneath makes them want to know what it is like to be such a famous pop star, something that hopefully will make them read the magazine.

The PLUG looks different from other things on the cover in order to stand out on the cover.

The MASTERHEAD is written in a white bold font to really stand out and is very clear and informal.

The LAYOUT is very minimalistic because of the simplicity and a minimal colour scheme of only white and black. Most front covers stand out by using lots of colours, cover lines and images while this one does just the opposite. The few colours and absent of big cover lines gives the cover a natural, very mature and sophisticated feel, appealing to a target audience of late teen/young adult men and women.

The PRICE and barcode is very small and placed down in the left corner so it does not stand out. The price of £ 3.80 suggest that this is a more exclusive magazine.

The COVERLINES are small and doesn’t stand out but tells the audience what you can expect to read about inside the magazine.

The MAIN IMAGE portraits Matthew Healy, lead vocalist in the band The 1975. The image was shot in a studio, as a close up like many other front cover images, but is still very different. This is because the subject matter is looking up to the left instead of looking into the camera. It is also different because of the absent of colours. The only colour except black and white in the image is the skin colour.

The MAIN COVER LINE stands out on the cover with the white and black bold font. The cover line identifies who the artist in the image is as some wouldn’t recognise him, but the band’s name.

The HEADLINE is written in a big bold font to stand out with the date in a very small font underneath as this does not need to stand out.

The LAYOUT is organised in a way that roughly divides the page into three columns where the middle one is the biggest because this is where the main article is presented.

The PAGE NUMBERS is written in a big orange font to make it easy for the reader to know where to find them in the magazine.

The magazine advertise for subscription to NME, in that way they know the ad will reach the correct audience as they are already interested in the magazine.

The most important articles in the magazine is shown on the contents page with an image and a text under it, mostly quotes, that informs and entice the audience to read further about it. The rest of the content is placed in the bottom of the page and much smaller as this does not need to stand out

The HEADING of the page include the magazine’s logo, the headline Contents, the date and the magazine’s website. It is all written in a white font to be clearly readable on the black background. The date is quite small and the website address is even smaller as this does not need to stand out.

The LAYOUT is organised and and be broken down to three columns. In the left hand column you find the contents listed in order while on the while the other columns is covered by a big image with the reviews underneath it. The colour scheme consist of black, white and red.

The MAIN ARTICLE is presented with a big image of The Courteeners. Most of them look directly into the camera connecting with the reader.

The contents of the Oasis Special has its own headline and is framed and written in a gold colour. This is to stand out from the rest as of the contents as more exclusive.

The page’s LAYOUT is very minimalistic not containing a lot of images or colours as the only colours are those in the cover images. This minimalistic and clean look is something that is special about this magazine and may make it stand out as different.The template of the page divides the cover articles, the features, the regulars and fashion into different columns only consisting of text in a black font with the page number clearly marked. The cover articles are presented on the top of the page and are the biggest as these are the most important ones.

The only images on the page is the two covers. They both have a quite minimalistic

The MAIN IMAGE in black and white portraits the artist ???. He is playing the guitar and looking down.

The MAIN HEADING is written in a big, both black and red font and placed the middle covering both pages, something that stands clearly out on the page. The words in the heading are from one of his songs and are attracting people who already are already fans and also encouraging new fans.

The LAYOUT separates the text and image as they are on one page each, though the heading is written on both pages. The empty space keep the layout from being to busy. The article text is divided into three columns, this organises the text and makes it easier for the audience to read. The colour scheme is simple consisting of black, white and red. The red colour is found several places on the page to draw attention to this areas or specific words, like for example as some of the words in the first paragraph and the quote.

The drop cap draws attentionmarking the beginning of the article. The smaller drop cap marks a new paragraph where the actual interview with Lana Del Ray start.

The MAIN IMAGE portraits artist Lana Del Rey. She is represented very feminine with make up on and her nails done. The way she poses with her eyes closed and the hand on her neck is also quite feminine. This supports the Male Gaze because the women who se this want to be like her.

The arrows shows the reader that the article continues on the next side.

The LAYOUT of the double page spread separates the image and the text by putting them on one page each. The layout of the text page is based on columns, but in a bit different way as the first paragraph is much bigger. The colour scheme is simple consisting of only black and white in addition to the colours in the image which are quite subtle not drawing a lot of attention.

The MAIN HEADING is written in a quite small font does not stand out as most people would already recognise the artist by the image.

The MAIN IMAGE is a medium close up of musician Archy Marshall/King Krule. He is looking down and has a lot of shadow in his face so we can’t see this eyes which make him mysterious and maybe makes the reader more curious about him. The contrasting colours orange and green draws attention to the image.

The LAYOUT of the double page separates the text and the image as they are put on one side each. The text is divided into three columns making it easier to read. The colour scheme is simple only consisting of black and white and some green picked out from the image to connect the two pages.

The layout is full of graphics, found in the image and the MAIN HEADING using different fonts and putting them together in an untraditional way. This creates a unique and individual appearance that relates to the magazines style and genre.

The HEADING navigates the reader and explain what kind of article this is.

The drop cap draws attention to where the article starts.

Similarities

FRONT COVER

A convention for magazine front covers is that the image is a studio portrait (often with the subject matter looking directly into the camera). This also applies in these front covers, they were all taken in a studio, but Clash breaks the convention because the subject subject matter is looking in a different direction.

CONTENTS PAGE

All the contents pages are organised in columns with different headings and the page numbers are clearly visible.

DOUBLE PAGE SPRED

The double page spreads have many similarities. The overall layout is very conventional with an image dominating one side of the page, and the main article on the other that is divided into three columns. You can also very often find drop caps in the articles.