RESEARCH

NME Magazine

• Published by IPC media.

• Circulation:33,875

• Readership:325,000

• “Readers have a strong relationship with NME and completely trust the brand”

• “Not surprisingly NME readers are completely obsessed by music. Reader research has demonstrated that they rely on the editorial and the ads to keep them up to date with new music. This knowledge then makes them the authority in music in their peer group.”

Kerrang Magazine

• Produced by Bauer Magazine

• Circulation: 44,013

• Readership: 421,000

• “Kerrang! will ensure that we are constantly appealing to our spectrum of readers. From the younger teenage readers who are more open to different genres of rock music – from emo to thrash etc, to the readers who respect Kerrang! as an authority when it comes to our scene’s heritage bands.”

Q Magazine

• Produced by Bauer Magazine

• Circulation: 89,450

• Readership: 550,000

• “‘Q is a bastian (sic) for music of substance

guiding its readers through just the good stuff in

all forms of music each month via its

unparalleled access and Q Review, the world’s

biggest and best music guide.”

Advertisements in a different colour, in the yellow circle to stand out from the rest so that the reader is drawn towards the advertisement. The idea of this for NME is that advertising is a big money maker for them and so they want to draw the reader to the advertisement as best they can.

Special is a buzz word. The buzzword draws in the audience as it makes the consumer feel more involved as if they are the first ones to know the gossip. Special makes them feel like they are the only ones.

The masthead is the biggest bit of writing on the magazine. The consumer is immediately drawn to it because of its size and the boldness of the writing so that the consumer knows exactly what brand of magazine it is that they are buying. The straight lines of the font make it a more basic font which links into the stereotype of the male reader that NME target at, of who are often less arty and more basic with their stuff. The font is Sans Serif which is good for short words because they are bold fonts.

The sub-heading is also in bold and right at the top. Being at the top tells the reader that it is the most important story of the magazine. The bold makes the key words stand out so ‘a punk icon’ is in bold so it immediately stands out. The bold writing has the key words so like people who are into punk music will be immediately drawn to the article.

The big picture has a main character relating to the articles inside. On this one, Joe Strummer is figure in the centre, and he is the ‘punk icon’ that the main article inside will talk about. Joe Strummer has an angry facial expression of him to match his personality.

The quote is a quote by Joe Strummer, so we get an idea of the man who it is talking about. Quotes are useful as they are a short and snappy way of summing up the story. A quote can attract the audience to the magazine and a short snappy sentence is an effective way of doing that.

NME title is again the biggest bit of writing on the magazine. The consumer is immediately drawn to it because of its size and the boldness of the writing so that the consumer knows exactly what brand of magazine it is that they are buying. The boldness of ‘NME THIS WEEK’ draws the consumer straight to the top so the consumer knows exactly what the page is about. The font is still Sont-Serif for the titles ‘NME THIS WEEK’, ‘BAND INDEX’, ‘NEWS’ etc and coupled with the black outline or black writing, the audience knows that they are the sub titles of the image.

The date is on the contents page so the consumer knows how in date the magazine is.

Lists the page numbers under the subtitles in order, so the audience has a clear contents outline for the magazine. The audience wants it to be clear and easy to navigate around the magazine. The red writing makes it clear as well what page number. The simpler the better.

Advertisements in a different colour, the yellow writing makes it stand out from the rest so that the reader is drawn towards the advertisement. The correlation of the yellow colour for advertisements has continued from the previous page. The idea of this for NME is that advertising is a big money maker for them and so they want to draw the reader to the advertisement as best they can. Gives them all the details of how to apply and the size of the writing is bigger than the actual text. Shows its importance.

This add-on is a stand out pop up which catches the readers eye. ‘the UK’S no 1’ are buzzwords that are used so the reader can look straight to them.

The image is centralised on the page with the text directly below in columns. This column form orders the page into different sections so this helps for the contents to be ordered.

The first part of the article is in bold and contains catchy phrases and quotes such as ‘runaway’ that draws the reader in to make them want to read more of the article.

Picture covers one page of the double page spread. The idea of the big picture is so some readers can be drawn into it as the picture is what draws the reader to a page. The picture also follows the 3 column layout that was show in the contents page. The first column where he has his right hand, the second where the text is cut out and the third where his left hand is. ‘Good’ is highlighted in a different colour to the rest of the text to show that it is a key word of the title, this tells the reader that the article is going to be a positive depiction of Pete Doherty.

Pull quote because it has been pulled out of the article. It is used to highlight a key phrase or key message of the article. In this case as well the key words of the key quote are highlighted in bold to demonstrate the importance of each phrase than those that are not highlighted like ‘Peter used to be’. It makes the consumer ask questions like what's changed?

The picture in the corner also fits the 3 column theme of the magazine.

As the article is across a double page spread, there is a lot of text.

There is a contrast between the 2 pictures. The smaller picture is in the environment of his music and is a natural picture, whereas the other picture, the large picture, of the article and this is staged and so Is perhaps the more significant picture which the writer wants the audience to look at. Maybe the appeal of the article is not of his music but of him as a person.

‘Exclusive’ buzzword draws in the audience as it makesthe consumer feel more involved as if they are the first ones to read the magazine or in this case to try the Amy Winehouse CD.Moreover the use of exclusive is significant because Amy Winehouse is dead and so this could be to show that they can’t read about her again.

The big Q in the top left corner is the mastheadand the logo of Q magazine. The consumer is immediately drawn to it because of its size and the boldness of the writing of the white against the red. Immediately, the reader knows what brand of magazine they are buying. Below it, it says that Q is ‘the worlds greatest magazine’ greatest is a buzz word and the hyperbole makes the reader feel like they are getting a high quality product.

‘AMY’ is in large, bold, Sans Serif font. Sans Serif fonts make texts stand out as they are bold fonts. This is effective in this instance because it is the first word we as a reader are drawn to and we immediately understand that Amy Winehouse is who the main article is about. Coupled with the large picture of Amy Winehouse, the audience make connections of who it is about and whether they want to read on.

The red and white theme of the magazine is thorough across the page. Sticking to a colour scheme is useful for a magazine as it gives the consumer connotations and iconographic images of which brand of magazine they are looking at.

The advertisement at the bottom has a red box around it, separating it from the rest of the page and the black writing makes it stand out from the rest. This is so that the reader is drawn towards the advertisement. This is useful for Q as advertising is a big money maker for them and so they want to draw the reader to the advertisement as best they can.

The Cover doesn’t have any articles and has the headings and sub-headings which gives the consumer a brief insight into what they will be expecting in the magazine.

The picture covers the full page which is the same as with the NME Joe Strummer cover.

If you are a fan of Amy Winehouse, you are more likely to buy this particular issue of the magazine

Titled so immediately the reader knows it is a contents page, like NME it also has clear and numerically ordered contents so that it is very easy for the reader to guide their way through the magazine. Readers want the contents to be simple to navigate around because they are more interested in the actual content of the magazine.

As in NME, the magazine is in a 3 column format. Which helps the page to be more ordered.

Differently to NME magazine, there isn’t the beginning of an article on the contents page instead it has the cut out of a quote from the page 38 article. And the sub-heading for the article, ‘The Courteeners’. This is a different way of matching the picture with the text on the contents page. It is effective because it is short and snappy and the reader perhaps doesn’t want to be drawn to too much text at this point of the magazine.

Another difference is the ‘review’ pages at the back. The contents page in this instance, only leaves a small area of the page for listing the review sub-headings.

The picture covers a large percentage of the page, so therefore, their isn't a lot of writing than perhaps on the NME contents where the picture is smaller. The setting for this picture is in a more natural place and the clothing is more casual than what they would be when they were playing, this gives the impression that the article could be more to do with their personality than their music.

‘Oasis Special’ is titled with a different colour to the rest of the page in a gold colour to make it stand out from the rest of the magazine as something different. Moreover, the Oasis Special has ‘!’ at the end of it which adds to its importance. Without the ‘!’ it makes the whole article look less significant. Using the buzzword ‘special’ makes the consumer believe that they are going to read something that is exclusive to them alone, which makes the magazine a more attractive read. NME didn’t have this on their contents, moreover the Q magazine contents page doesn’t have any advertisements on whereas the NME contents page had.

The date is on the contents page so the consumer knows how in date the magazine is.

The title to this double page spread is significant as it changes colour from black to red in the middle of it and this matches the title itself saying that the colour is also changing as well as the times.

Moreover, the picture depicts Jake Bugg in a similar way to Bob Dylan. This is because Jake Bugg is described in the media as been like a new Bob Dylan, writing the same sort of music. Bob Dylan used to have his picture taken with the dull coloured picture and the looking down of the guitar and so all the time the magazine is comparing and contrasting the 2 characters being written about in the article. The Picture covers one page of the double page spread. The idea of the big picture is so some readers can be drawn into it as the picture is what draws the reader to a page

The text is laid out into 3 clear columns, keeping the format of the previous contents page. The words ‘the times they’ are also in the 3 column format with 1 word for each column. At the bottom of the left hand column, a pull quote has been used and highlighted in red, which is the same as in NME magazine when it pulls out the quote in the middle to highlight its importance in the context of the article. In this case as well the key words of the key quote are highlighted in italics, to demonstrate the importance of the quote. It makes the reader engage with the meaning of the article.

There is also a lot of blank space on the page. Q magazine like a clean look to their magazines and so don’t mind leaving a lot of blank spaces on their pages. This is in contrast to NME magazine, which often uses the full pages.

When the page breaks, the writing changes too. One page is text, one page is picture. They also look like very different pages. These contrasts are very significant, because it links to the title that things are changing. Not only this, but the fact that they are very different yet very similar is a juxtaposition.

The black colour immediately stands out in the magazine. This matches the audiencewhich the magazine aims at, because Kerrang aims at the more darker and almost gothic teenage market that will largely wear black clothes and be drawn to black colours stereotypically.

There are more advertisements in this magazine to the other magazines. Kerrang aims at the younger market who are more likely to spend their money on entering competitions. The colours for the advertisings are highlighted by the light blue and the yellow and so this helps for them to stand out even more. This colour scheme is also a convention of the Kerrang magazine, as they are contrasting to the colours of other music magazines. In addition, each advertisement is isolated and sectioned from one another which helps to make the advertisement stand out even more.

In this magazine there are also more buzzwords. The words ‘win’ and ‘awesome’ and ‘plus’ all really stand out in the page because apart from in the case of ‘awesome’ they are all written in white with a blue outline and the contrast between the 2 colours makes the words look bolder. As I established in the earlier analysis, buzzwords are used to draw in the reader as it makes the consumer feel more involved with the magazine.

There are 5 pictures on the cover of the magazine and the number 5 stands out on the front page of the magazine advertising the posters internally. This has the repetitive effect on the reader and they register immediately the number 5 and this is significant because subconsciously the reader goes through this process and subconscious messages help a magazine to put across a message without it being too in your face.

In this instance, the title isn’t clearly shown which is a contrast to the other magazines.

Like with the NME magazine there is a pull out quote on the front cover although not in as large font as NME. The pull out quote coupled with the sub-title below, gives an insight into the story inside. In this instance it is made very clear as the title ‘green day’ is in very big writing and the picture is of the singer from Green Day and so it is very easy for the reader to make the connection of who the magazine will be about. This is very similar to both the other magazines where the cover of the person makes a clear relation with the sub heading of the main article.

The smaller pictures only make up a small proportion of the page.

It has the title of ‘contents’ at the top of the page. The page being immediately titled helps the reader to navigate around the page.

The masthead is positioned in the centre of the page, which makes it clear for the reader to notice. The generic ‘Kerrang’ title is prominent being in the white font against the black.

The page is split into 2 parts. With the picture prominent at the top and the writing at the bottom. Moreover, the colour adds to the binary opposition of the page having the very dark colours at the top and the white colour at the bottom.

Each sub-heading is clear as it has the yellow writing with the black background. Yellow is a very contrasting colour to the black and the white colours on the page.

In this contents page, the columnsare split up into 5 columns. This is a contrast to the other pages.

The advertisements are spread out throughout the page with no clear layout to them for example there is ‘win’ at the third column at the top and then the one in the bottom corner in the black and red outline. I don’t think this is an effective layout as the reader might find it hard to navigate to them.

The general icon of the contents page of having the pages laid out in numericalorder is also present in this page.

There is a good balance of text to picture ratio in this contents page. It has 6 pictures which take up a good amount of space on this page. Very little of the page is wasted, which is another good thing about this page. The 2 cut out pictures at the top fit into the first 2 columns of the page and so are bigger, whereas the 3 in the bottom half fit into just 1 individual column. The main picture of the contents page fills up half of the page, which is a convention of the double page spread of the other magazines.

This magazine has a clear label of ‘Slash’ so people can make the link immediately who the man in the picture is if they are unsure. Slash is depicted in a ‘rock star’ look; which links in to the style of music which his band ‘Guns and Roses’ play

Similarly to the previous page, there is a lot of black colour on this page. The colour is to attract the audience who they target at. The target audience for kerrang, as I already eluded to, is the younger darker teenagers.

Again, the main picture takes up one page of the double page spread. This seems to be a convention of the music magazine. The picture is dulled down and so the dark colours are prominent again.

In this top corner, this page has the buzzwords ‘world exclusive’ which makes the reader feel more involved with the magazine and the word ‘exclusive’ made them believe that they are the only people accessing the story, and then ‘news’ is also in bold with the red colour. The red colour is significant as it stands out from the rest of the white bland colour. The red signifies the importance of each message.

The quote has been pulled out of the text, it draws the reader to a key point of the article.

The third column of the writing is a bit different to what the other magazines had. It has the title ‘new MCR tracks’ and has a description on all of the new tracks. All of the text and pictures on this page relate to MCR.

The page is very picture heavy, with only around a quarter of the page being text. Again, this could link to the target audience of younger people, who perhaps aren't as interested in reading big lengthy texts.

The pictures are all pictures of the band either playing or recording music which relates to who they are as musicians. It also appears as though they are all posing for the cameras as well. This is significant as these are pictures which the magazine makes wanted to match the text.

CONVENTIONS

One convention of the music magazine appears to be that on the double page spread the main picture takes up one whole page of the 2.

CONVENTIONS

Another is that the cover page has a picture that sits in the background that

covers the full page. Moreover, they are all portraits of the key individuals for the

magazine. All of the pictures are medium close ups. They’re all looking straight at

the reader, which has the effect of attracting the reader to the magazine.

CONVENTIONS

On every double page spread,

there is a pull quote from the

main text.

CONVENTIONS

On the contents page there is always some

kind of layout for the pages in numerical

order. There are also sub-headings in

between each section of the contents.

CONVENTIONS

One convention is that on the cover pages, there is a clear masthead with the

brand of each of the magazines clear to see.

CONVENTIONS

Another convention is that on each cover there is some connection between

the picture and title of the band or the person in it.

CONVENTIONS

A convention is that all of the pictures are medium close ups of the artists.

Moreover, the images are not in the music setting and a more personal setting,

which suggests the magazine articles are more about the person.

MY MAGAZINE

From my research, I have planned and decided on

some of the features which I will want to be in my

magazine as well.

MY MAGAZINE - COVER

• Similar to the other magazines, my magazine will

have a full page picture on the cover page, as

this is a convention of the music magazine. I

will have various advertisements around the

page. I will have the masthead in bold sans serif

font on the top left corner. The cover will be in

a similar style to the NME magazine as I like the

way it is laid out.

MY MAGAZINE - CONTENTS

• On my contents page, I will have the contents

numerically ordered down the page. I want it to

be a fairly simple layout like Q magazine, so that

the reader can easily navigate around it.

MY MAGAZINE - DOUBLE PAGE

SPREAD

• My double page spread will be based around the

Q magazine and NME magazine double page,

with one picture covering one page and text

covering the other page. I think that this

structure works well because the picture draws

the reader in and the separated text makes it easy

to navigate.

MY MAGAZINE - STRUCTURE

• My magazine will be based around a simple and

easy to navigate structure. So for example, this

would include: clear headings and sub-headings

and clear columns separating each part of the

page. I want it to be like this because I believe

magazines work better the more basic they are

as magazines are generally an easy read.