analysis of front covers, contents pages and double page spreads
TRANSCRIPT
ANALYSIS OF FRONT COVERS, CONTENTS PAGES
AND DOUBLE PAGE SPREADS
By Bethan Revill
FRONT COVERS
By researching five different alternative rock front covers, I have come to a
conclusion of how this genre magazine portrays certain genders and classes
and how they portray them in the sense of stereotypes, ideologies and how
they appeal to the audience through the use of conventions and layout
choices.
For starters within the front cover of the genres magazine, the cover
models are a mixture of men and women. The does not fit with the main
ideologies of gender when it comes to music magazines. Women are shown
as being equal to men in the alternative rock genre and this is uncommon in
other genres. Quite often the female cover models are shown to be smiling
and laughing, whereas the male cover models are shown to be serious.
I was surprised by the amount of different house styles in this genre.
The colours are red, black and yellow. I didn't think yellow would be
one of the main colours as it a very bright colour and doesn't seem to fit
the ideology of alternative rock. Also the bright colours tend to contrast
the dark, making the words pop out more. The typography tends to
looked smashed and broken. This hints that alternative rock music is
loud and doesn’t fit the norm. The colours of text and pictures contrasts
and really stands out, for example yellow writing on a black
background. The main clothing colour tends to be black; this fits the
dark representation of the genre.
CONTENTS PAGE
After analysis five contents pages, I have found out how they
appeal to audience and they represent the alternative rock
lifestyle. The contents pages all stick to dark house styles, black
and dark blue. This represents the attitudes portrayed by artists
from this genre. All the images are large, this catches the readers
attention and makes them more noticeable.
The ‘pick and mix’ theory applies to the majority of the
alternative magazines I have analysed. This shows the magazines
want to appeal to as many audiences as possible.
Iconography is used massively in the contents page.
The cover models are wearing dark clothes, leather
jackets and jeans. This shows them to have a ‘bad’
attitude. In most of the pictures the cover models are
serious and not showing any expressions.
DOUBLE PAGE SPREADS
I have analysed several double page spreads. While doing this I have
found out their portrayal of alternative rock artists as well as they sort of
stories that the audience likes to read.
The images in the double page spreads usually cover a whole page
(sometimes two), this instantly attracts the readers attention and makes
them notice the article next to it. The images are usually the band
messing around or acting seriously, there is no in between. This shows
different ideas of the genre.
The stories are mostly interviews about a new tour coming up or an
interesting story that grips the reader.