Conventions of a Music magazine and a normal magazine

Conventions of a Music magazine and a normal magazine

Before creating my own music magazine, I must first study other music magazines and compare them to regular magazines, stating the codes and conventions each share, in order to gain knowledge and ideas to contribute towards my own.
When first looking at these two magazines, I instantly noticed the colours, mastheads and main images used in both , and how they are placed uniquely on the covers. The first magazine I will look at is 'Kerrang', a rock magazine prodominently for males who have an interest in music and want to find out news and stories about their favourite bands. We know this from the style of the font used in the masthead and coverlines, and the actual coverlines themselves. The general price for this magazine is around £2.50, suggesting it is a reasonable price that can be afforded by all classes, not just people with a lot of money.

The main image on the cover is placed in the centre, and used as a background for the cover, with the coverlines over it, and the masthead layered underneath. This gives an importance of the image and the person in it, yet the size of the masthead still gives it power and attraction to the reader. The font used for the magazine and the title is iconic as it is used continuously, and is designed as a 'cracked mirror' style, to show rebellion, stereotypically something which represents males, again referring to the the gender of the magazine audience and to represent the genre of the magazine itself. The masthead is placed at the top of the magazine so that it is instantly recognised by the audience when on the selling racks, making it iconic and attractive to them. The colours used are again stereotypical to the gender, as darker colours complement brighter harder ones to give a harsh feel to the magazine, rather than a light elegant feel, stereotypically for the female gender. Overall, this magazine uses the right colours, text and imagery position to relate and attract the audience, whilst representing the genre and making it iconic.

The next magazine I will look at is completely different to the first, and is a women's gossip magazine, the audience age ranging from around 20-40 onwards. It is a more expensive magazine because of the content, though still aims at being within a reasonable price range, as typically the audience targeted is housewives or women that work and want something to read in their break. We can tell all of this, from the genre of the magazine, the style of the font used for the masthead and coverlines, and the bright attractive colours included on the cover, appealing particularly to the female gender.

The layout of this cover is different from the first, as it shows a title behind the main image, again used in the centre and as a background for the cover, to show importance and give attraction. There is a smaller image beside it, which shows relation between the two people within the images, and the cover lines also relate these. Other images are listed down the left side of the cover, as features inside the magazine, instead of using alot of cover lines, a unique way to present a cover as we do not see this technique used often.

Although the title is covered a little by the image, it does not matter, as it is an iconic sign which the audience recognise. The white colour used for the title is done to represent a newspaper, giving a straight forward look that shows importance and urgency to be read. However, using this style, although effective is a risky choice, as with no emboss or outline included, it could be potentially overlooked when it comes to the racks.

The colour behind the main image is in a gradient style similar to the first, although uses lighter and softer colours to give the idea that this magazine is prodominently for females, unlike the first which is dependant mainly on the male gender.

When looking again at this cover, I notice the coverlines are more like sentences accross the page, whereas the first is key features more like notes, listed on the cover which will be included inside the magazine. The use of extra images replaces this, making it unique, and it is done in a successful way to connect with the audience and get this accross to them to gain understanding, yet again is a risky idea, as if not related in the right way with them, could be confusing and unattractive, as they would not understand what features are included in the magazine. The cover lines used on this cover are smaller than the rest of the font and in bold white, relating to the title and again giving a sense of importance, whereas the main coverline which represents the two images shown in the centre is in large, bold font, in the colour yellow. It is slightly embossed to give bold effect to stand out, and is done using a bright colour for attraction and importance. Finally, the barcode is also included, though is placed horizontally rather than vertically like the first, again for a unique effect and to save space on the page.

Overall, though the magazines contrast in many different ways because of their genre and target audience, they share similar features which make them successful, such as large images used for a background, bright bold colours for the title and cover lines to give importance and urgency, and an iconic title and main image, as both will instantly attract the audience when on the racks. These features are all things that I will think about and include when creating my own magazine.