Main Task Analysis two music magazines

First task of the main task is to analysis two music magazines of our choice. My first one I choose to do was Kerrang because I thought it would be an interesting one to do and to see if they laid it out differently to a different music magazine because its music genre is rock so they might lay it out differently and use differently colours to a pop music magazine or a R&B magazine.

Analysis of music magazine (kerrang)

Title of magazine: Kerrang

Publisher: Bauer

Frequency: Weekly

Cost of each issue: £2.20

Sales figures: 41,125

How does Kerrang reach their target audience for their music magazine:

The thing that Kerrang do to get their target audience is firstly make sure that they cover the genre that their target audience is most likely to read about because Kerrang is a rock magazine I don't think their target audience will be very happy if they have pop stars in and on the front cover of the magazine. They also grab the readers attention by putting teasers on the front cover such as they may say many posters inside or read some inclusive interviews for the first time in here so they use these methods to grab the readers attention which I think is the most effective way in getting the readers attention.

Front cover:

Font: The font is a bit weird but is it quite bold so it stand’s out to the reader and its easy to read what’s going to be on the inside of the magazine. Te font also goes well with the background colour so it stands out even more which is a clever way of grabbing the reader’s attention.

Masthead: The layout of the magazine is used very well like most magazines they have the title in big bold writing different to the background so it stands out then it has the main story in bold so it tells the reader this is what you will want to read when you buy this magazine. They use different colours for the background compared to the font so it looks effective and grabs the reader’s attention. The colours on the front cover of the magazine are quite dark which you expect because of the genre of music it is which is rock.

Contents: On the front cover of the magazine there are a lot of teasers on the front cover such as there are a number of posters inside of the magazine which it says on the front cover and then they have the main story and a sub story and then it says at the bottom what else is going to be inside of this edition of the magazine.

Who the magazine is aimed at: This magazine is aimed at any gender but it is a certain genre of music that some people are not in to. The music genre for this magazine is rock you can tell this by the big rock bands on the front cover of the magazine such as Muse and Lost prophets.

Image: On the front cover of this magazine there are a lot of images they have the main one that is a picture of a band in this issue it is bullet for my valentine. This image takes up about three quarters of the page and then they have some smaller images about the posters, which are inside of the magazine. The size of the main images is good because it definitely grabs the reader’s attention even if you don’t like the band or the genre of music. The image is also good because it is a very popular band of which genre of music it is in.

Contents page:

The contents page is different to most other magazines such as they have a image taking up half the page on the contents page of a popular rock group 30 seconds to mars and then underneath it has all the pages of the different information in this edition of the magazine.

Font: The background colour and the font colour is the same as that is used on the front cover of the magazine so they don’t change it’s the same and then they have the page number in a colour that stands out and the sub heading in bold so it stands out to the reader and its easy to see the font on the contents page because they carefully selected the colours so that the colours didn't clash together.

Masthead: The layout of the contents page has also been printed well such as its close together and very brief so you don’t have to read a lot and it doesn’t give away the stories it’s a very good but basic contents page because they have used the space well.

Double page spread:

For the double page spread that I have reviewed which is page 6-7 has a very big image of a band which takes up just over a page the band name is called The Dillinger Escape Plan so with the image being so big it immediately grabs the readers attention because they might like the bands music so they will read the article about them.

They use white and red font on a black background and the heading is in bold so it stands out to the reader as soon as the reader turns the page because it grabs the reader’s attention. They also have in bold about them releasing a new album so if people are a fan of there music then it’s a good way of publishing about having a new album because readers will know about it then they might buy it. The actual article is in small white font so the white stands out but it is quite hard to read the text.

I think the layout of the double page spread is good because its altogether rather than text being spread out all over the page because then you know when to start and finish rather than get lost because there is loads of text everywhere so its easy to follow. I also like the fact they use a big image because sometimes if there is only a small image it makes it hard to establish who the people are in the images.

There's no slang in the magazine article instead its very formal with lots of information about the band and about the release of their new CD. I think the article is very well written and tells a lot of information about the band and how they got inspired to make the new CD and what songs to create like “Gold teeth on a bum” the leader of the band called Greg said “People think it’s a joke title but its from a true story. I was in Hollywood and a homeless guy with a mouthful of legitimate asked me for money” so that’s where Greg got the idea to release the bands new song called that.

Overall I think the double page spread is good because it has a big image that grabs the reader’s attention and then they have a lot of information about the band. The only negative thing about the double page spread is that the text font is quite small so its harder for the readers to read.

Analysis of second magazine Q

Title of magazine: Q

Publisher: Bauer

Frequency: Weekly

Cost of each issue: £3.90

Sales figures: (from December 2008) 103,017

How does Q reach their target audience:

Q uses similiar techniques as Kerrang in order to reach their target audience such as they use music stars in the genre that their target audience is interested in such as on the front cover of this issue is Cheryl Cole. They also have teasers on the front such as they say who they are interviewing in this issue and what the music stars have been up to.

Front cover:

Image: On the front cover of this magazine there is just one main image, which on this issue is Cheryl Cole who most men admire and most women would love to look like so it is a good way for grabbing the reader’s attention and Cheryl Cole has sex appeal about her whereas on the front cover of the Kerrang magazine they have a big rock band so both magazines front cover are trying to attract readers in different ways.

Font: There are a variety of different font sizes used. Such as they have Cheryl Cole in bold white writing so it stands out on the front cover. Just above where it says Cheryl Cole it has the name of her new album which is 3 words which isn’t as bold but it still stands out so she’s also advertising her new album. The title of the magazine is very bold and stands out the most out of all the font used so the readers can associate with the magazine easily when they look at magazines. All of the font stands out on the front cover of the magazine because they use a different font colour compared to the background colour.

Masthead: The layout of the magazine I think is laid out well such as they have the text all around the outside of Cheryl Cole’s face so she is still the main focus of the front cover of the magazine and they use her to grab the readers attention. Also the way they use the font is very effective because they use a different font colour to the background colour so the sub headings will stand out to the reader.

Contents: On the front cover of the magazine there are quite a few teasers, which I think is really effective in a way that it will grab the reader’s attention probably even more if they didn’t have the teasers because it’s a good way of grabbing the reader’s attention because they have stories about bands or artists that some readers might be interested about.

Who the magazine is aimed at: I think this magazine is aimed at anyone who is interested in music because despite having Cheryl Cole as the main image on the front cover which might make some people think it’s a women’s magazine however the bands they have inside include Muse, Snow Patrol and 50 cent so they also have bands that maybe might get men to buy there magazine so they cover a wide target audience.

Contents page:

I think the contents page of this magazine is really good such as I like the way it’s a double page spread because this gives the publisher more room to put in text and images to make it stand out more to the reader.

Font: The colours they use for the font is quite similar to the colours used on the front cover so there isn’t much of a mixture of colours which is good because if they use too many colours then it would look to full. Another thing that is good about the font on the contents page is that they have the page number and who’s the article is about in bold so it stands out to the reader and then a sentence about what the article is about. The use of bold font is good because it stands out to the reader and is very effective.

Masthead: I also think the way the contents page is laid out is good because as well as having all the page numbers and a bit of information about the article they also have an image of the person that the story is about so if you don’t know the name of the person you might recognise them by image so this is another good way of grabbing the readers attention.

Double page spread:

For the double page spread I have decided to analysis pages 88-89 and its about Chris Packhams album watch. The layout is quite similar with the one I analysed from the Kerrang magazine because on one page it has the image and on the other page it has all the information on however with Q were they have text they also have small images the reason for this being is because he's talking about artists or bands and I think that they felt some readers might not recognise the name but if the see an image of the artists or bands then they might know who they are.

However I do like the layout because I rather see a big main image with a page of writing then have two pages with smaller images which are full of writing because I might lose interest in what I'm reading.

I like the font colours that they have used because it stands out on the background and easy to read. They only use two colours which is white and red I think that having two different font colours is good because then you can separate into different categories such as with this article the red is the name of the artist or band and then the name of the album and a bit of information about the album and the release dates.

I think it is clever about how they took the photo because when I first looked at the photo I thought he was in a bit of a random location because the model is in a woodland location but then I read the sentence underneath and saw that it was due to the current season which is Spring so I think that is a really good idea about how they thought of that.

Overall I think that the double page spread is really good and will be very interesting for readers that want to know when the artist or bands album is coming out. I also like the choice of colours and how they don't blend in with the background so it's easy to read off and I like the way the picture goes with the current season which is Spring.

Contents page

The final task i had to do was make a contents page to go with the front cover on the preliminary task. I found this task quite challenging because I wanted to use the same kind of colours that I used on my front cover so there wasn't to much of a variety of colours. I also didn't want to use too many images because its a contents page and I wanted it to be formal so people could tell whats going to be inside of my magazine. After I took into account everything such as the number of images to use and the font size that would stand out to the reader and the font colour it all came together well and I finished the preliminary task. I think when it comes to doing my contents page for my music magazine it would be better because when I done this one I was trying to get use to photoshop and my skills aren't yet very good.