Front Cover Analysis - Three magazines

The New Musical Express (better known as the NME) is a popular music magazine in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in the 14 November 1952 edition. In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music magazine.

Layout 
Quite an organized neat layout with two clear cells however the font with the look of spray paint shows quite a rebellious image.  

Colour Scheme
Red and white display quite a loud, angry image and it looks very masculine.

Images
The famous face of mid shot Marcus Mumford instantly connects with the audience as it is instantly recognizable. Also the fact that he is surrounded by fans may suggest to the reader that they are on tour, instantly attracting the reader to find out more about the artist.

Features
Mumford & Sons  

Target Audience
Young people ranging from 15-35 mainly aimed at boys interested in rock/indie/alternative music.

Mode Of Address
Unspecialist, poster style - for a yonger feel.

The Fly is a free music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom. The magazine is published by independent music company Mama Group and has grown from its origins as a listings guide for Barfly venues to become the biggest free music magazine in the country.

The Fly is renowned for supporting bands early, having given the likes of Razorlight, Muse and Coldplay their first cover features. In 2008, they had Foals, MGMT, Black Kids, Friendly Fires, Late of the pier and Noah and the Whale on the cover before any other UK publication.

Layout

Simplistic, neat look with bold lettering.

Colour Scheme

Classic and simple black and white colours with yellow contrast to attract attention to the specific thing.

Images

Close up image of Laura Marling. Although this magazine is free the fact that it has a famous face on the cover instantly attracts the reader to pick up a copy.

Features

Laura Marling

Target Audience

Young people into new music and up and coming bands.

Mode of address

Unspecialist, yong people. 

 THE BRIGHTON SOURCE is a free full-colour magazine, distributed once a month, covering all aspects of Brighton life, from music and clubs to fashion and food. As well as comprehensive day-by-day listings, we preview the best gigs by local and touring bands, talk to the biggest DJs and bands in town, review the best clubs and bars and write about local issues, be it the skate scene, up-and-coming artists, or local icons. SOURCE has given Bat For Lashes, Foals, The Pipettes and Fujiya & Myagi their first covers.

Layout

Minimal use of words, very organized layout, information kept to the lower left part of the page.

Colour Scheme

Bright comic book style colours, but colours of the text is kept quite simple.

Images

Normal full body picture, yet animated to make the person in the picture look like a superhero. Not very well known artist so the animated picture could be used to draw the attention of the reader.

Features

Mumdance

Target Audience

Local young people in the Brighton area. The magazine is free so it mainly appeals to the people who shop in the stores that supply the magazine, for example American apparel and h&m.

Mode of address

Young, Unspecialist.

Questionnaire Results

Gender

Male 50%

Female 50%

I chose an equal number so that the test was fair.

Age 

16-20 50%

20-25 30%

26-30 10%

30-35 10%

This aspect may not be as accurate because more 16-20 year olds were interviewed.

Do you read music magazines? 

Yes -

30% of the people who said yes were women

70% of the people who said yes were men

= 70% total

No -

70% of the people who said no were women

30% of the people who said no were men

= 30% total

What is your preferred genre? 

Alternative 40%

Acoustic 20%

Pop 10%

Dance 10%

Rock 10%

Soul/ Easy listening 10%

If given a wide selection, which magazine would you go to time after time?

60% of the people we asked said NME due to the fact that is very reliable and always interesting.
80% of the women said that they were put off by the angry image that was somtimes portrayed through music magazines such as kerrang!

What do you look for in a music magazine? 

Gig dates and ticket information 100%

Interviews with artists 100%

Newly established artists 60%

Famous artists 80%

Photos from past gigs 50%

Reviews 90%

Gossip and rumours 50%

How much do you typically spend on magazines per month? 

0-£5 20%

£6-£10 60%

£10+ 20%

Questionnaire

I decided that as well as doing video interviews, I also wanted to do  questionnaire in order to develop more of an understanding about the consumer and what they look for in magazines.

Gender

Male/ Female

Age 

16-20

20-25

26-30

30-35

Do you read music magazines? 

Yes/No

What is your preferred genre? 

_____________________________________

If given a wide selection, which magazine would you go to time after time?

_____________________________________

What do you look for in a music magazine? 

Gig dates and ticket information

Interviews with artists

Newly established artists

Famous artists

Photos from past gigs

Reviews

Gossip and rumours

How much do you typically spend on music magazines per month? 

0-£5

£6-£10

£10+

Naming my magazine

Here are my mind maps that I drew when trying to come up with a magazine name.

Feedback from school magazine

What were your first impressions of the magazine cover?

Would you consider the design masculine or feminine?

Is the cover title appropriate for the magazine?

Is it asthetiaclly pleasing?

Is it appealing to you?

Anything you would change about the magazine?

Sorry they're sideways

School Magazine - Final Piece

Here is my finished school magazine front cover. I added my logo as well as putting in some typical conventions of a published magazine. I decided to use two columns with a footer at the bottom because I didn't want to obscure the photo. I used quite simple font to advertise my features. I thought that anything too complicated would look too much with the logo and having seen other magazines such as NME, they keep their features font simple too. It is quite a simple layout but I really like the way it turned out. 

I chose my font for my logo because it reminded me of an old American High School sports team logo which I thought looked very suited and i wanted to base my magazine around the idea of an American High School which is very centered around close community such as School Sports and Prom. I decided to use a colour scheme of pink and orange as I thought the colours went together well and used the orange to make certain words pop out against the black.If I were to change anything about my front cover I would have perhaps spent more time on editing the photo as I think it could have used a simple background and more brightness/contrast in photoshop. 

Here is my contents page for my school magazine. I used the same pink as on the front cover, I wanted to pay close attention to this as I think it is important to keep the colour scheme constant in connecting these two pages so they flow together nicely.
I decided to keep my contents page quite clean. It would be more important to make subheadings if there were many more pages but as there are only 16 it is simple to locate things that you wish to read and I preferred the look of a simple text layout. For the photos I wanted students to be able to see picture that interested them and see a page number that instantly takes them to more information without having to flick through the magazine.
I quite like the way my contents looks but I think if i were to redo it I would change the purple background and possibly squeeze in a few more pictures by making a right hand column for them.

Conventions of a magazine

There are several features of a magazine cover that are universal among all magazine covers. The reason for this is that each aspect of the front cover is to grab the reader and make them want to buy the issue.  Therefore within the industry there are well known techniques to maximize advertisement and sales.

The logo is perhaps the most important part of the cover. It shows the potential buyer how they are portraying themselves as a company and what they’re generally about. The colour, style, text and size can all add up to a very specific look for a company, this is why companies spend large amounts perfecting their logo. The general aim is to be bold on the cover to attract the buyer.

However depending on how popular the magazine is changes the logo, for example, notice on NME the logo is a bold red, but  it is also quite minimalist, being partly behind the singers head and a very simple logo. This is because NME is such a classic well known brand, the people looking to buy a music magazine would already know the brand name and wouldn’t need to see the entire logo or need a fancy logo to remember it.

In contrast to this, the Kerrang magazine logo is very bold, it is also quite a relatively new magazine and not everyone has heard of it. There is also some encrypted meanings behind it.  The lettering is very simple however there are slashes and it is quite chipped, this suggests that the music genre on this may be punk/ rock style.

Q however is the boldest of the three. Bright red lettering grabs the attention of the potential buyer yet because it is a well known magazine, the logo can be very simple.

The second thing most important thing on the magazine cover is the main picture and the exclusive/interview. The picture can come in three different shots, close up, mid shot and full body images. The main feature is the ‘headline’ for the magazine and the thing that they think will make people pick up the magazine and want to buy it specifically for that person and the thing that they will have invested the most time or money in. Notice how in all three magazine samples, the headline is right in the middle of the page and is the second biggest text.

Another important aspect of a magazine cover, which features in all three magazines is a small box, either at the top or bottom of the page, saying other artists featured in the magazine. This is also to attract the reader, showing who else is in the magazine. It also however shows the general genre of the magazine, for example: 30 Seconds to mars, metallica and you me and six all suggest a rock magazine whereas Elbow and Pete Doherty suggest an alternative/indie genre.

In all magazines there is always the text at the side, showing what else features in the issue e.g. competitions, posters, interviews, specials all to show the top features and to entice the reader.

Finally something that is on every magazine is the barcode, the date, the issue number and the price. To show readers the release date and how much the magazine costs.