analysis of professional magazine covers
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Analysis of professional magazine coversTRANSCRIPT
ANALYSIS of professional magazine covers
Katie Moore
The first magazine I have chosen to analyse is NME. NME’s target audience is teenagers male and female because the fount cover picture is alternates from being a male artist or female artist. Also due to the main image being a new talked about artist at the moment or someone high in the charts this appeals more to a younger audience.
The colour scheme of NME here we can see are blacks, whites, reds and yellows. Most back ground on any music magazines have a plain background so as to not take away the fascination or thunder of the main image.
The main image on the front cover of NME here is Jake Bugg. NME is an alternative rock/inide magazine therefore has lots of new recently discovered just starting out artists. Although the main image of the magazine would be a very famous or recently popular new artist who has recently done something making them more talked about than everyone else.
Here there are two images from the front cover advertising Paul Banks giving the magazine an interview quote ‘I was happier when I was drunk’. On this cover line the emphasis is on the name and how he ‘come clean’ drawing the reader in to make them want to know more about this particular person drawing there eyes to this part first as it stands out in yellow and a back bold background.
There are two cover lines on this magazine one which has two pictures linked to it and the other here on its own. The name of the person here is emphasised in yellow making it stand out more to the reader so if they are glancing at the magazine the yellow may catch there eye and persuade them to buy it if they are particularly interested in that person.
The barcode is located at the bottom of the magazine and includes the price issue number and date. It also includes the magazines website.There is a puff advertising bubble here which is displayed in red on of the magazines main colours from their scheme. This is advertising ‘The Killers’ tickets and which page you can find out how to win them on. Persuading the customer to buy the magazine this way by luring them in by the name of the band and how to win free tickets to see them.
Q magazine is a pop/indie/hip hop genre and is targeted towards teenagers/students. The logo for the magazine is a simple large Q located at the top left hand side of the magazine. It then has a bar of information underneath it ‘the worlds greatest music magazine’. Customers are usually draw to captions and buzz words e.g. ‘greatest’ and ‘exclusive’.The colour scheme is red, blacks and whites and orange. This is fairly similar to NME.
The cover lines are red, white and orange. They
are in different sized fonts in bolds, itallics, bigger and also some
type has a back ground. This makes the cover
lines a lot more stand out and draws the readers attention to the cover
lines more. I think this is a great idea as it doesn’t just mean that there is one focal point to the
magazine. The cover lines are also
linked to the main image telling how Amy
Winehouse is getting on a year after all the drama that surrounded her life.
The type is in larger bolder type which draws the reader to want to buy and read about the new legitimate gossip on her
life.
Q magazine is a pop/indie/hip hop genre and is targeted towards teenagers/students. You can
gather this from the type of artist and image used on the front cover. On this particular issue the
main image is Amy Winehouse. There is a lot of interest towards Amys life as she is contently being
caught with drugs, drunk and with her ‘bad boy’ boyfriend which gets her a lot of press attention. With people hearing about her in the news and
people talking about her putting her on a magazine fount cover with a possible interview is going to draws peoples attention to it and to persuade
readers to purchase it.
There are puff bubbles off the magazine which I don’t feel stand out as much as they could. Here you can just about make out that
the advertisement is a website address. Showing
the reader that the magazine has a website,
but I feel this doesn’t jump out at you and could just
be included on the barcode.
The barcode is located at the bottom right of the magazine
including the price in bold type, and the issue number
and date. This is the same on most magazines.
The title of this magazine takes up most of the top of the magazine it has the website address in smaller type underneath it. I feel because this magazine is less well known the title is more stand out. The colour scheme is black white and orange. The puff/cover line is an exclusive, on Brett Anderson but I feel if you were looking at this magazine if you didn’t know much about it you and didn’t know who he was I think a picture of him should have been placed above it so the reader feels more comfortable buying it as they may recognise who he is from the picture rather than his name. the main image is a girl band from what I can gather although I don’t know who the band is which I also think will make the reader move on to look at the next magazine as the band isn't that recognisable e.g. a famous star Lady gaga.
The main advertising puff is, im guessing the name of the band and also underneath it has some information on the band, which you can really see. There also isn't much information on any other artists which means the target audience has been made smaller.
There is also information on different bands at the bottom but it only says their names nothing about them or what they might be talked about in the magazine. The barcode again is located to the bottom right of the magazine with the price, issue number and date.