Magazine research

Front covers

This magazine features a famous RnB artist called Eve, as the main image. This would attract different audiences male or female who are into RnB and know about them. The front cover itself has gone with a pink white and blue colour scheme, the simplicity of it works to make it appeal yet again to both genders. This is eye-catching, however I think it is trying to appeal more to women orientated audience than men due to the colour scheme and the main image. The writing on the cover as well makes me believe this as the words "Real Sex" and "Real love“ are something a woman would be drawn to rather than a man, the fact its in bold red makes it powerful. I think this is trying to draw readers in to celebrity social life, and as well as being a music magazine it focuses on gossip as well.

The target audience for this magazine I would say is young males of the ages between 17 and 25. The magazine context is about hip-hop, rap. We can tell this because the striking image that has been used as the main image. It mentions names well known in the hip-hop industry such as Ice Cube, and The Game. This magazine would appeal mainly to males because there is one male on the front cover, and the cover only mentions names of males. However it still may have a female audience out their because the genre of the music itself is appealing to both genders. The image itself of the artists ‘The Game’ suggests that the magazine is giving of the image of violence and death I get this feeling because the pose being done is imitating guns, this is another reason in which I would say its aimed at older males. The bold colours of the heading are impressive as they are bold and stand out.

This front cover of NME. Along with most of the other covers from this magazine, feature on some way or another, a dominant colour scheme of red and white, the simplicity of this attracts both genders and a wider age group target audience. This is conventional of most music magazines along with a title going across the whole top of the cover completely from left to right. They are always bold in order to be recognisable by the audience that reads them, this is something not only NME do with their magazines. With this magazine cover they have taken the best parts of interviews titles and topics in the magazine to make the cover so striking, this is a way of engaging the audience to read the magazine. This is something I am possibly going to do with my magazine. Unlike most magazine covers this has used a close close up of the artist as the covers main image which is something I would also like to do.

Contents pages

This contents page is from the magazine VIBE, a magazine mainly based on the genre of RnB. I have chosen this contents page to analyse because I really like how it laid out. I'm really attracted to it due to its simplicity. I love how simple and plain it could be perceived, I think this has worked with this cover as its still effective in doing the job its meant to do. Another thing in which I like is how the word ‘CONTENTS’ has been split up into sections, this a really creative way of making the simple contents page seem high class. The fact that the text is all set out on the right hand side of the page and the majority of the picture is set out down the left hand side of the page I think this gives the contents page a very organised neat look. I also like the use of grey/black/white, as I think those particular colours go well together and the way the white part at the top of the page contrasts with the black letters in ‘CONTENTS’, as well as this being simple its means that the magazine could be aimed at both males and females. I do however think that the target audience for this particular contents page would be more females than males due to the main image of a lady and the position in which she is laid in. there is a slightly darker shade of grey around the outside of the page I like this effect as I think it gives the figure of the celebrity a lit up effect almost as though she is led in a spotlight, making her the main attraction of the page. I also like the font of the writing of what's inside the magazine, as i think it looks very sophisticated and classy. and the important parts of the writing is in bold so the more important, informative parts of the test stands out.

The genre at which the contents page is aiming at is R&B and the reason for me knowing this is because of the person whom the picture is of, in this case Usher. Usher tends to do his music around the genre R&B and thus therefore telling me that the magazine contents page is R&B related. The target audience in which the contents page is attracting for this magazine is an age group between 15-20 year old's or Students in particular as they tend to buy magazines of this type of music as it interests them. The layout of this contents page is 7 paragraphs down the left hand side of the page describing the features in which are in this magazine, there is also a large image of Usher on the right hand side of the page as this will attract people who like usher and in this magazines case students or younger aged people. The representation of the magazine shows the genre of the music as the image in which is on the cover is of Usher and he has attitude in which is being shown though his posture and the way he is stood.

Mojo's contents page is unusual compared to previous music magazines that have been looked at. It uses a two colour scheme and image predominant, although this is similar there is only one photograph on the page which is visually disturbing of the artist: Alice Cooper naked with black snake covering him. This following the style of the magazine, controversial and daring focusing on rock music and old bands. It is a very dark image and his face, hair and eyes look tired, dirty and messy. He laying in front of a plain background that is the colour for the whole page, dark grey; also following the rock and roll genre. The text is very simplistic in either bold red for page numbers or bold words for the titles and plain black for the description underneath. It is written in two short columns displaying the simplicity. The first column is titled: FEATURES, the other one is named COVER STORIES THE MAKING OF BOB DYLAN. The titles of the article is written in capital letters e.g. ALICE COOPER whereas the rest in is lower case. Other text includes the date, issue number which hasn't been featured in other magazine that have been viewed. Also the page number and different countries or a street under the mast head that is placed at the top. There is a quote that follows the image in lower case and a description in capitals below in red and black text.

Double page spreads

This article is of Q magazine about Lady Gaga. There isn’t a colour scheme of the article as such, but it does follows the main magazine colour scheme which is the white and red, and the image is in black and white. The simplicity of this works well, its easy to read yet still very eye catching. The huge ‘L’ that is the first letter of the article makes the text side of the page look very dramatic, especially because the ‘L’ straight away makes the reader think of Lady Gaga even thought there is not title or caption. The ‘L’ also draws the whole page together, it’s a simple thing to do which can have a big impact on the reader as to whether they would read the article. The text is in black which is simple and makes it looks intense because it fills the page head to bottom. The ‘L’ can be seen over the text but the text is equally legible, this use of huge lettering is actually quite common in Q magazine. Furthermore the small Lady Gaga in the top right-hand corner is almost timid confronted with the ‘L’.

The photograph in double page spread flows over ¾ of the two pages and the article is set on one side, this works as it gives a sense of emotion to the pages.. The photograph is also in sepia which represents his classic ‘vintage’ rock style and musical taste. The Sepia tone also links in with the sepia tone of their album cover, which is clever simple yet very effective way of getting their point across. The way there is a lighter within the page also represents his typical “rock & roll lifestyle" giving people who don’t necessarily know his bands music an insight on what style it is.Within the introduction to the interview, there are informal words such as “geezer” which shows the casualness of the following article. The article begins with a drop cap to make it clear on where it actually starts – simple, but very effective. This magazine double page spread is really strong in my eye's and really inspires me as to what I may do with my own, I love the fact that unlike most Rock and Roll magazines which use bold colours and layouts to display their context the simplicity of the washed out colours works better in this case.

The is a double page from flavour magazine, and features Alexandra burke. Straight away we can get a sense that this article in particular is mainly being targeted to females. Its simplicity of just having one image using up the whole page draws the article into one because you know for certain who the article is going to be . The double page spread using the convention of 1 big image just like many other magazines have done, this is a simple technique that works well. As well as doing this they have also used a basic colour scheme, when I say basic I mean that their isn't really one as there isn't much room for colour to be brought into the page. However the colour scheme which you could say this uses is white, black and pink, yet again this is another way of conveying the fact that the target audience to this article in particular is going to be females. Some may argue that from the long shot of the singer in a very short dress could also be appealing to the male audience.