Research & Planning: Whats on the Market?

Whats on the market?

The first music magazine I have chosen to study is a copy of NME, NME is an alternative rock music magazine with a high profile. The first thing my eyes are drawn to is the image of artist, Florence Welch. She is placed against plain background, which looks as if it may be a wall but the background doesn’t distract the audience away from the image. She is also using a a direct address which makes it look as if she is looking toward the audience locking their full attentions, it also gives a more personal approach as the audience may have felt a connection between themseleves and Florence in this image. Her pose could be seen as provocative as it looks as if she is about to unbutton the sleeve of her shirt.

The element I noticed is the text, ‘NME’ is written in a clear bold font on the top left of the magazine, making it clear it is the title, the converlines all use the same text which creates the same theme through out the front cover, the font looks the same as a font I can access called ‘fututra’. Also, all of the front cover is written in capitals apart from the web address, this works well to make the magazine important and stand out. The colour of the text is also similar using 3 key colours black, white and red which are usually associated with the ‘rock’ genre.

A celebrity endoresment on the main cover also makes the magazine successful as her fans will buy the magazine as she is simply on the cover, also she is current for the time period and people may idiolise her or be interested to read about her, which will encourage them to purchase the magazine.

The magazine also keeps to a rule of thirds and there is typcially more on the left third of a magazine as the left third of a magazine is the side exposed in a shop. The spacing between the text is also fairly equal and makes sure it also exposes the key features of the artist, Florence.

NME portrays its readers by this cover in quite a classy way but still encludes that element of ‘’rock and roll’ by using the top right hand image of the Joy Devison artist, Ian Curtis as smoking and he’s looking away from the camera. Giving the impression that he’s living for the moment and isnt really too interested in whats going on he just lives for his music, which will portray the values of some of the readers who purchase NME.

The next magazine I have decided to study is music magazine ‘SPIN’, the magazine features upcoming artist Azelia Banks, Azelia is placed against a pink wall, with a floral curtain on the left which juxtaposes her brightly coloured skimpy outfit which gives the ‘ good girl, gone bad’ look, Azelia is also in a playful and flirty pose showing some cleavage.

           

There isn’t a lot of text on main conver page to keep the audience drawn on Azelia, it is a simple cover and easy to navigate. The text is all also in capitals,  apart from the right hand corner text which has the names of artists inscribed. Like before the text is written in capitals to draw the readers attention.

The magazine also uses a rule of thirds to make it even, the magazine is very plain making it easy to navigate to its audience. This shows ‘SPIN’ is aimed at a younger target audience as its not filled with text and is mainly an image.

The next music magazine I have chosen is Q magazine, Q is aimed at a slightly older target audience then I have planned to aim my magazine however, I thought it would be beneficial to study. They have chosen to use a current celebrity to endorse the magazine, Adele is using a direct address creating a connection between her and the audience, the cover line ‘Adele blows us away” is a play on words as it links to the image of her hair which is being blown backwards. She also has her hand up towards her lip, which creates a ‘thinking’ pose.

The text of the magazine is once again in capitals making the magazine look important, there is only 3 different fonts used through out the cover, it also sticks to the colour scheme of red, white and black with gold for the information in numbers, possibly to make them look more exciting.

The magazine also keeps a rule of composition and a rule of thirds to prevent the image from looking too cluttered or blocking the image, the magazine looks fairly glamorous as a whole.