Front Cover
KERRANG - February 2007 Issue
- Masthead (Kerrang) hidden behind the main photo on the front cover (usually a band or artist). Shows the main focus of the front cover is not the Masthead but the photo of the featured band or artist.
- Photo (Band: Fall Out Boy) Large, two band members are looking at the camera, direct to the audience, recognisable with genre (Rock).
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Strapline features other bands and artists featured in the magazine, known and popular bands/artists for the audience to read more on.
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Smaller photos of the magazine contents (Blink 182 featured on the front, white outline for the box to separate it from the rest of the darkened background of the main photo).
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Colour palette for the front cover is very dark, dark tones used mainly blacks and browns, some contrasting colours for the text or the bottom strapline to highlight them on the front cover.
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Text for the Fall Out Boy contrasts with the colour scheme for the front cover, bright white against the darkened photo, allows it to stand out.
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Masthead - the colour palette for the masthead text is the opposite (contrasts) to the background of the masthead; the background is white whereas the text is black, stands out (even when we can't see most of it due to the photo hiding it).
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Front Cover is busy, packed with photos and information, the main focus on the front cover is the photo of the two members from Fall out Boy.
Q - January 2010 issue
- Masthead is a single lettter so it shows confidence, the magazine shows that it doesn't need a long name for the cover but just a since word. The colour palette for the masthead are contrasting colours which benifit each other to stand out, the striking red background against the white Q means the first thing which the audience would perhaps focus on would be the Masthead, it is made to pop from the front cover.
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Photo on the front cover features various famous, popular and talented artists who the audience would be fans of, we have a range of differnet genres presented on the front cover from Rock to Rap. The photo is a fold in which continues across three pages, so even more artists are shown within the fold out front cover. With a fold out front cover it is something a little differnet to what a normal front cover of a magazine would be like, interests the audience.
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Strapline on the front cover reads, ‘THE UK’S BIGGEST MUSIC MAGAZINE’ so we can see that the magazine is popular, supported by the cover photo which features powerful, popular and talented artists who wouldn’t of posed for the cover if they didn’t believe in the magazine. The colour palette for the strapline is a simple white text against a plain background, simple but sophisticated.
- The
Colour palette for the whole front cover (minus the photo) only features a small numbers of colours (red, black and white). This shows a more clean, simple but also professional design, it shows to me that the magazine feel they don't need a million different colours to make their cover seem more interesting, the front cover is all about the photo on front and even then the photo features a few bright colours but most of the artists are dressed in dark toned clothes, as they are presented against a mid light grey background.
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Text on the front cover is Serif text, is has a mature look to it, the font colour is black so again sticking to a simple desing, Q doesn't wish to use many different types to interest their audience, they feel that simple look more professional and clean.
- From the
Front Cover I would say that the targeted audience for Q would be more mature older teenagers to any age beyond older teenagers. The whole clean and professional look shows to me that it is more Indie music, less pop and hip hop and more rock and roll music as it features artists like Pink, Greenday, Paul McCartney and Bono.
- There seems to be no
cover lines shown on Q’s front cover, again showing that they don’t need snippets from articles to entice the audience, they simply have the sophisticated photo of the many artists to do that.
Metal Hammer - January 2010 Issue
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Masterhead is similar to KERRANG as it is partly hidden behind the featured image on the cover, the masthead also features the word ‘Metal’ on the letter H so already we can see that this magazine is targeted at people who are fans of Metal music.
- Photo on the front cover features a male artist (not familiar with him) but his use of facial expressions shows a angry attitude which some can associate with how Metal bands and artists act when performing, they use a lot of anger to express themselves.
- The Strapline on the front cover promotes an article inside the magazines, the colour palette for the text is flames and so it stands out against the black background of the front cover, our eyes are drawn to contrasting colours such as the bright colours of the flames in the text.
- The colour palette for the whole cover is similar to KERRANG again, it is however more dark, less colours used and no small photos which show the articles featured inside, and the main focus on the front cover is the man in the middle. Most of the text is either white, silver, flamed yellow or red, keeping it to small colour palette used. Hardly any bright colours shown on the front cover, apart from the flames within the text, the man featured on the front doesn’t have a bright t-shirt on, instead he has a black and white shirt on, sticking with the dark tones and deep colours on the front cover.
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cover lines featured on the front are scattered all along the sides, such as the ones about the band are focused near the top of the front cover whereas the other articles cover lines are at the bottom right hand corner of the cover and in much smaller text. We can see the importance of the cover lines about the bands and artists due to them being in silver font and being much larger than the other cover lines.
- The whole
front cover to me shows that it is a metal music magazine, from the colours used (black, whites, flamed yellows, etc) and also from the image of the angry artist on the front. If I were a metal music fan then I would be interested by this front cover is contains the needed cover lines and the Masthead which would entice me to buy it.
Contents Page
Q Magazine
- The colour palette for the contents page is similar to the front cover, red, white, black and grey so we can see that even inside the magazine it looks clean, simple a sophisticated.
- The text on the contents page is again simple serif font (sleek and professional). The colour of the font is red, white or black. Some sections of the text have been bolded (highlighted) to stand out more to the audience’s eye.
- The photos on the contents page feature articles in the magazine, little luring snippets which make the audience want to read on. It also shows a double page spread from the next issue, this would get the audience interested and make them want to buy the magazine again.
- The background of the contents page is a plain white, very simple, clean and professional looking. Other backgrounds such as the heading at the top of the page with the large Q is like the front cover a intense block red, it is striking and hard to miss, the audience’s eyes would be drawn to it. The use of the contrasting colour for the heading background and the page background allows the page to be more fresh (white always makes colours look more fresh and intense) so the intensity of the red allows the page to stand out.
- The headline at the top of the page features the large white thick Q with ‘Contents’ presented next to it in a plain black serif font. With the background of the heading (intense red) allows the black font to be more striking and visible to the audience’s eyes. The heading background also has a thick black outline around the box so this helps to separate the intense red background from the plain white background of the entire page.
- The layout of the contents page is neat and well organised, all the information given on the page is presented in boxes. Such as the list of articles and their pages is presented in a dark grey box, the headline is in a rectangle at the top of the page. The next issue is at the side of the contents page, and any other information is organised at the bottom of the page, it isn’t thrown around but simple which shows that Q doesn’t need a crazy layout for their contents page, the main focus of this page are the articles listed, not the layout.
KERRANG
- The colour palette is very basic, using dark toned colours such as red and black for the font and background for heading and subheading. The colour for the font in the heading and subheading is white to contrast with the dark tones of the red and the black. With the photos they have a range of colours but still nothing too bright and bold, just similar dark tones and the main picture which features a woman is presented in black and white so once again a plain, basic colour palette.
- The font is sans serif which shows that it is a little more care free, with the articles listed at the right hand side of the page, the subheadings for them (categories the articles come under) are bolded (highlighted) and in a deep red colour, contrasting it with the white bright background.
- The photos feature different band members and artists who the audience may be fans off, the size of the three pictures at the top are the same sizes, they are there to lure the audience into reading more of the magazine. The large image (more importance since it is larger than the others) features a woman (artists).
- The background is a plain bright white background so with the contrasting dark toned colours of the photos and the text they are highlighted more due to the intensity of the white background.
- The layout of the page is very basic; the lists of articles are featured at the right hand side of the page, with the photo of the woman on the other side, the 3 photos above all in a perfect line and the heading above. The layout would be seen as a typical magazine layout, usually for more photos used than text.
METAL HAMMER
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colour palette is a mixture, apart from the pictures the colour palette is very basic with only black and red being used for the text as well as white in the editor’s letter.
- The font for the text is both serif and sans serif (editor’s letter), for the list of articles the subheadings are presented in a unique font (metal font and in black) with serif font below, the use of serif font makes it look more sleek as well as gothic for the metal music.
- The photos on the page feature a mixture of intense dark toned colours of artists from metal bands; most of the contents page is taken up by the photo so I would say that for this magazine photos are an important factor for the contents page. The photos also feature the numbers of the page that the photo is originally featured on, this gives more help to the audience, it is a visual help for them, they can easy look at the images and find the page.
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background on the contents page is a white colour but it has a visual texture to it, it looks like scrunched up paper which has also been dirtied up a little, so it gives this grunge look to the contents page which relates to the music (metal).
Double Page Spread
Q Magazine
With the double page we feature two pages, one has the text, the other a large 1 page photo of the person, in this case Rihanna.
1st Page
- The colour palette for the page is simple; the colour of the text is red, white or black (going with the same style as the contents page). Some of the text has been bolded to be highlighted for importance, such as important quotes from the interview as well as at the top of the page, Rihanna’s name has been bolded to stand out more.
- Some of the text has been coloured red to highlight them as they stand out from the rest of the black coloured text, only important words have been highlight in red, not a lot but a couple.
- The font is serif to be sleek, sophisticated and professional looking which links with what Q magazine is. Some of the text has been put into italic writing, such as the subheading under the heading, ‘Rihanna’.
- The background for the page is clean and white, the background is just canvas, no focus has been placed on it, it is simply their to make the text on this page seem more fresh and striking to the audience.
- The section where it described how Rihanna’s decade has gone and the awards she has won has been placed in a dark black box with the font in white, with it being in black it stands out more and also highlights this section as being important to the article.
2nd Page
- The photo of Rihanna, she is wearing dark toned clothes to she can stand out more against the white/grey background behind her. The main focus is of course her and so with her unusual angle and posture she is automatically drawn to, we focus on her because of her usual posture and dark clothes.
- The small white text in the right hand top corner is placed over a semi white/grey background so it is just able to be seen, it is the caption, explaining the photo so usually they do have it very small, it is not that important.
- The fact that Rihanna is the only one in the shot shows confidence, her clothes show style and her posture shows flexiblity and talent. How she stands, dresses is all to impress her fans.
