Analysis of Magazine Title Blocks

The title block on this magazine ‘Billboard’ tells us that the target audience is around the 20’s age. This is due to the font being Sans serif this is seen to be the modern text, and also even though the font colour is black they use an element of fun to attract their target audience by filling in the ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘a’ and the ‘d’ with the colours red, yellow and blue – these are all primary colours. It looks simple but is also effective and makes it easy to remember.

The masthead for this magazine shows that it is an older target audience as the font is serif which is a more mature font style. Also the regular font colour of the title block is usually red, however it can change on special editions (as seen on the cover I have here). Although there is not much to this masthead it is effective as it looks attractive to the eye with the font used and the boldness of it.

The title is 3 letters. It is a white bold font on a red background. The ‘XXL’ does not tell us what music genre it is, however it does show us that it is a modern day type of magazine as it uses a sans serif font. The masthead is eye catching which is easy to remember for the audience.

Designing the title block

To start my music magazine off, I have to first think of the masthead as it is the first thing that catches the eye or that the audience looks out for. I wanted the title to fit the genre and style of the magazine that it is. After this I came up with the name ‘The Beat’, I chose this because I thought it was best suited to the genre I was going for this magazine. Then I had to find which font best illustrates the magazine and the title. Out of all of the fonts I tried I went with font 2; font 1 was more for headlines/subtitles, although font 3 captures the genre of the magazine I felt that it was to unconventional for the magazine and font 4 made it a bit hard to read so wouldn’t be appealing to the reader.

After I have decided on my font style and what the magazine should be called, i then started to experiment with different colour s on the masthead. When experimenting I found colours that weren’t as eye catching as others. I wanted there to be a colour scheme on the front colour, and I ended up using the three colours I liked the best bumble-bee yellow, black and white. The bumble-bee yellow was the most appealing of the three so I used it for the title. I was happy with my choice of colour.

Generic Conventions of a Music Magazine

Generic Conventions of a Music Magazine

One of the most generic conventions of XXL magazine is the masthead. For every one of their magazines has the same red coloured background and white bold font colour. Most music magazines do this same convention as it is easy for it to stand out and read, also it makes the magazine name memorable. For this magazine it is placed in the top left corner, therefore the reader is always aware that it is going to be there so the times where the main images of the artists cover the masthead it doesn’t matter too much because you know what magazine it is.

The central image of the artist/s help to maintain the stereotype of this magazine. The images are always of current and popular artist/s at that time of the music genre that suits XXL music magazine (rap & hiphop) – the majority of the time it is mainly men on the front cover. The people on the front cover are reasonably attractive, so it captures the readers eye.

Customer loyality is maintained in every issue as they do the same festures such as interviews and articles with the current and popular artist/s. From looking at the magazine, XXL looks like it is more aimed for males in their teenage years all the wy to their 30s. I came to this assumption that this is the target audience as the colours used are more of the sterotypical “boy-ish” colours (reds and blacks – lighter colours are sterotypically for girls). Also the adverts inside this magazine are mainly mens clothing, men’s fragrances, technology etc.

On a few occasions they have women on the front cover, the women is usually fairly attractive therefore making the consumer drawn to purchasing the magazine.

The usal contents page for XXL magazine is simple, but has its effectiveness. It features the masthead, however its smaller and does take up the domination of the page. The content has a few artists on the photos on the left and then on the right is where they have the page numbers and what is iincluded in the magazine. The contents page is appealing as there are photos relating to the issue of the magazine

An analysis of a double page spread issue of XXL magazine, is that firstly they always have the picture of the artist more dominate as they make the image large to either take up half or more than half of the double page spread and then the other page is just a full on article. There are very few font colours and most of the time on the double page spread they have a quote by the artist in which stands out from the article and image – its always big, and either a different font colour or a different font.

All of the above research is useful to me creating my magazine as this is going to be the type of target audience, therefore I am going to be following some of these key conventions used for this magazine. This means that the front cover, contents page and the double page spread will follow the simple factor – as it seems that less is more.

Music Magazine Results (Bar Charts)

Music Magazine Questionnaire

1. How old are you?

16 [ ]

17 [ ]

18+ [ ]

2. What type of music are you into?

R’n’B [ ]

Hip-hop [ ]

Rock [ ]

Pop [ ]

Classical [ ]

Indie [ ]

Grime [ ]

Other [state... ]

3. Do you buy a magazine because...

...of the look of the front cover [ ]
...of the context [ ]

4. Which magazine would you prefer?

One with lots of colour [ ]

One with a few colours (2/3 different colours) [ ]

5. On your music magazine do you prefer?

One main artist to dominate the cover [ ]

Various artist on the cover [ ]

6. Inside the magazine, do you prefer?

An article with mostly writing and one main picture [ ]

An article with minimum writing and loads of pictures [ ]

7. Do you like a magazine with a colour sceme?

Yes [ ]

No [ ]

8. How much would you spend on a magazine?

£1.00 - £1.99 [ ]

£2.00 - £2.99 [ ]

£3.00 - £3.99 [ ]

£4.00+ [ ]

9. How often do you buy a magazine?

Daily [ ]

Weekly [ ]

Monthly [ ]

10. Do you like a magazine with loads of writing on the front cover?

Yes [ ]

No [ ]

11. What do you prefer on the front cover?

Male [ ]

Female [ ]

Both [ ]

12. Is it easier to buy a magazine with big bold bright colours?

Yes [ ]

No [ ]

Analysis of a double page spread for music magazine

Analysis of a Double Spread Music Magazine

This double page spread is in vibe magazine, as I said in my analysis of a front cover they like to make the artist the main focus of the layout. The setting of this double page spread is that there is a picture of Singer Solange Knowles in large in colour, then 8 small images of her in a grey scale. The effect of this on the audience is that it makes us see that it is indeed all about her, and the fact that the smaller images are her dancing which brings the connotation of a stereotypical young girl just trying to have fun showing her bubbly personality. It also can be seen as everything is in a grey scale apart from the large image of her which always attracts the reader to look there.The costume that they have used in this double page spread denotes of a short red prom style dress with 'strappy' purple and pink high heels and a little fur coat. The short red prom dress style dress has many connotations, firstly it is stereotypical for a young girl to have a short dress due to the fact that she wants to show off her legs as the young generation like to show off as much skin as possible because they think that is what beautiful is. Also the colour of the dress is effective because red implies fiery, fierce, intensity and stands out in a crowd this could reflect her personality therefore the costume speaks for her she doesn't have to make her poses extreme. The heel has an impact on the audience because it makes the illusion of her legs looking longer and thinner. The little fur coat she has on can imply that she has a wild side. Her hair denotes to the audience big volume curls which connotes fun, carefree and adventurous character.There are not many stand-out props that we see in this double page spread the only one we see is the jewellery that she is wearing. This connotes that she is playful and one of the necklaces is colourful and the other one is long and gold which has effect on the audience telling them the she has money and she likes to flaunt it.In this double page spread the NVC (non verbal communication) shows us on the larger image of the singer shows that her facial expression is telling the audience she is bored or she is not really bothered, also the position of her arms is behind her back which can imply she is an open person or maybe she is vulnerable due to the position of her legs. However, the 8 different small images that is in the grey scale the NVC in them are fun, lively and playful. This therefore contrasts with the grey scale which is meant to be seen a boring but the poses/images are vibrant so it stands out. Vibe magazine has used both sans serif fonts and serif fonts, for the big headings they used the sans serif fonts, this has an effect on the audience because it tells them that it is modern and it catches their eye. But the serif font for the whole text shows us that they want to keep it balanced so they have an element of traditional in the writing. This is effective as this is the same sort of idea they had for the images, they wanted to do contrasts.

Analysis of a music magazine front cover

Analysis of a Front Cover of a Music Magazine

The setting of this music magazine ‘VIBE’ is that there is a main photo of Chris Brown in the middle with overlapping the masthead. Chris Brown overlapping the title connotes that he is an important factor on this magazine front cover. The writing on the on the magazine is around the photo, it is either large and old or just bold and in white green and some red. The effectiveness of the boldness is to captivate the reader, having the writing in mainly green and white shows us that its fresh new hot topics that is on the front. The writing that is in red tells us that it is extremely hot on topic, and red also tells us that it is burning fiery information. The contrast of the black against red can also connote that it’s a sinful, dark secret. In the background there is concrete, which can connote that, strong, indestructible which could represent that the magazine stands out of the crowd. However it could also be seen that the background is so basic as there is not much going on there because they don’t need to loose the main focus away from the photo in the middle.

The costume that is used in the magazine front cover is a royal red t-shirt and indigo jeans with two gold chains around his neck, a big watch, bracelet, and a belt with silver plate on the clasp and a flat peak hat. The significance of the singer wearing normal everyday clothes is to show that it is relax and comfortable vibe towards the audience. Also the red t-shirt is a contrast to the whole magazine front cover as it is what stands out the most. The jewellery he wears tells us that he has lots of money and he wants to flaunt it so everyone knows hes young and getting money. His hat is sitting half way on his head, this is stereotypical for young people because they use the hat a sign of fashion and not for the actual purpose of what a hat is for which is to protect your head/face from the sun or prevent cold.

On the front cover of this magazine cover they made sure there were no props. This brings the connotation that there is only one important thing and it is the artist in the middle, which makes a reflection that the magazine is straightforward and easy to understand.

The lighting used in this front cover is high-key lighting which in this cover is quite homogeneous; it is bright and is free from dark shadows. The connotation of high-key lighting is stereotypically angelic, innocent, goodness and joy. However the image of the artist contrasts with the high-key lighting due to the non verbal communication.

The NVC (non verbal communication) that is denotes Chris Brown with his hands in his pockets with his arms spread from his body this can connate that he is showing a hard front, trying to make himself look as big as possible therefore making him looking as intimidating as he can. His body language gives off the impression that he is a relaxed type of person due to his hands just being in his pockets and his posture is slouched so it shows us that is lazy or it can imply that he is he rebels against society as he doesn’t want to have an upright posture, this is stereotypical of the young generation not caring. The artists’ facial expression shows aggression but at the same time he give off the look that he just doesn’t care. He is looking straight on which tells us he is trying to make a connection with the audience and the fact that his lips are closed and have tension in them has the effect on the audience that it is hard to get him to say certain things, he is a closed type of person which means he doesn’t want to open up.

The shot that they used in this front cover is a mid-shot this is effective on the audience because they can see more body language and also unlike a long shot you can see more facial expression to see the emotion of the artist. It is taken from a straight on angle with a standard lens type. The composition is symmetrical and the focus of the photo taken is sharp, this is important because it makes it more eye catching for the audience just to focus their attention straight to the artist, and the background is not as sharp.

Vibe magazine uses is sans serif font, this shows the audience that it is modern and this also tells us the target of the audience that it appeals to the young generation.

Introduction of Main Task

In the main task we did an analysis on the front cover and a double spread cover. Then we have to do a questionnaire to find out what type of music magazine will attract your audience and then put the results into graphs. Then we have to take a picture to put on our front cover page to reflect the genre of the magazine. Also we have to create along side the front cover but also a contents page and a double-page spread. We have to sketch of the music magazine.