Double-page spread- Planning

Here is an example of a double page spread from a popular, published magazine called Kerrang! magazine.

Analysing a Music Magazine

Analysing Kerrang! magazine.

Kerrang! magazine is a popular music based magazine which is published in the United Kingdom by Bauer Consumer Media. The magazine was first published on June 6th, 1981. Kerrang! is a weekly magazine that is highly acclaimed for representing many 'emo' or 'metacore' music.

Iconography is important for any magazine that wants to publish itself on a routine basis. The Title Kerrang! is iconographic as it unique and features the same in every issue. In the example issue above part of the title has been covered up for the celebrities head however due to iconography and recognition the audience still know that it is Kerrang! magazine; even though only the first three letters are eligible.

The colour black is a distinguishable feature of Kerrang! magazine. Black is used in every issue that I have researched and come across. Other features are also consistant throughout every issue such as the barcode being on situated at the bottom of the page, on the front page, in every release. Another feature of Kerrang! is that they have celebrity status on the front page, situated centrally and filling most of the page. The celebrites are usually solo performers or group bands such as 'Greenday', 'Paramore' and 'YouMeAtSix'. In the photo above the main person represented is the singer who is in the front out of the four band members. He is pointing at the front, towards the reader, which involved the audience in the magazine, including them in it.

The tagline "Panic At The Disco" is another popular band. The word 'Panic' is written in red. Red has connotations of anger, panic, blood and pain; these are all features of metal and emo music. The word 'panic' also stands out more than the rest of the text.

The background is white and therfore suggests blankness, clearness and stops the page from looking crowded and overfilled. Both male and females have been placed onto the front cover to reinforce that the magazine targets both males and females. However, the magazine rarely features black song artists or anyone other than white english or americans. The magazine generally targets an English audience by using American ideologies. The magazine is based in the UK however represents mainly American singer/song writers such as My Chemical Romance and Greenday to target other audiences.

In the front cover above you can see that Kerrang! have used 'Plus!' and 'Inside!' to entice the reader into buying the copy and seeing what is inside the issue. Plugs, side photographs/imags and sublines are an effective method of doing this.

The image is a medium shot of the band.

The largest text on the page is the masthead and the headline, both include block capital text to make it stand out as if the letters are screaming out at you.

Titles for my magazine

• BluesIsBack
  
• Soul


• BringBackTheBlues


• Bluesoul


• Blue Blues

The name for my magazine that I have decided to go for is Soul. This is because it targets the audience who enjoy Blues music without having to directly include 'Blues' in the title. It is also short and catchy so it will be memorable for the readers. 'Soul' has many connotations- Life, unknown, peace and importance. These features are significant as it will entice the reader into purchasing the magazine; and to ensure continued, regular purchase.

The title 'Soul' will also fit much easier onto my magazine front cover whereas 'BringBackTheBlues' would take up more room and the layout of the overall piece would be less effective.

As part of my planning I have decided to include this list of potential titles for names so the reader of this blog knows my thought process as I concluded on the title for my magazine.

Here is an example of a draft front cover of what my magazine would look like with the title 'The Blue Blues' and 'Soul'

Music genre

The music genre I have decided to represent is 'Blues' music.

I have decided to do this because of the following reasons:

• Blues do not have many magazines that represent it with only a handful of very popular magazines.
• The genre still has a very wide fan base and I believe many people would buy it, if it was properly represented.
• Although I am not a fan of Blues music, I believe it should be a more appreciated genre type and a magazine may help promote the music for new audiences.

Music Magazine Analysis

In this section I will analyse magazine front covers. To do this I will look at the music genres, target audience, sub genres, cost of production, layout and design. I have decided to create a magazine that appeals to an audience with limited sub genres as I want to target one specific genre. The music genres that strike me as the most popular types are: Rock, Metal, Pop, Hip-
Hop and Rap. However, because these genres are very popular there are already many magazines that have large fan bases for these music types. Rock music, (with all its sub genres included such as Acid Rock, Psychedelic Rock and Punk Rock), already has many magazines that target it: Kerrang!, NME and Mojo are examples of this. For this reason I have decided to choose a music genre that is largely popular however does not have many magazines that advertise and represent it. The music genre I have therefore decided to represent is Blues music. The leading Blues magazine in the United Kingdom is "Blues Matters!" magazine. This magazine is similar to many of the Rock magazines in layout and design. The central image is a band member who was looking directly at the camera when the shot was taken, catching our line of sight immediately. This creates a personal, more interactive feel between the song artists and the audience/general public. The magazine similarly has a large Masthead that is the magazines name. As you can see from NME front covers (see above), the Headline 'The Automatic' is the name of a band that is featured in the magazine. Similarly, Holly Golightly (as seen on Blues Matters above) is also the name of a featured band. The colour is also important as each genre can be identified by their colour scheme and layout. For example, rock and emo music tend to have black colours associated with it. This is done because that music genre wants to create certain images and ideologies- black represents darkness, the unknown and mystery. This suggests that rock music wants to appear as mysterious and different from the rest. Dark red is associated for heavy metal music; this colour connotes fire and flames which is an iconographic symbol for this genre type. The 'Blues' music similarly has blue as their main iconographic colour; I assume this is because of the name of the genre and that the reader perhaps expects to see this colour.

Examples of magazine front covers

Here is a compilation of magazine front covers with different genres and purposes.

Introduction to the Main Task

Today I am beginning the music magazine task that has been outlined as the main production -task. I will include a Front cover, contents page and a double-page spread.

I will begin by researching music magazines that have been popular and had high sales rates and then decide on the genre for my music magazine.

Here are a list of music genres:

Acid Jazz
Alternative
Ancient Greek Music
Art Song
Black Metal
Blues
Boogie Woogie
Breakbeat
Caribbean
Classical
Country
Dancehall Reggae
Death Metal
Disco
Drum and Bass
Early Music
Electro
Folk
Funk
Garage
Gothic
Hardcore
House
Industrial
Jazz
Latin
Lounge
Medieval
Metal
Musical
Opera
Progressive Rock
Punk and Hardcore
R&B and Soul
Rap and Hip-Hop
Reggae
Rock and Pop
Rockabilly
Salsa
Ska
Tango
Techno
Western

As you can see there are many music genres to choose from. The most popular genres are Rock, Pop, Jazz, Blues, R&B, Metal, Heavy Metal, Country and Alternative.

Now I will include a few examples of music genres and give examples of popular music talents that have shaped that particular genre.

Rock and Roll- Elvis Presley
Early British Rock- The Rolling Stones
Surf Music- The Beach Boys
Folk Rock- Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell

Conclusion of School/College Magazine

In this post I will form an overview of the whole education magazine that I have created on this blog. Here are the main focuses of my blog:

1. Introduction to production outlining my aims and objectives

2. Magazine front cover

3. Magazine analysis pages 1-4

4. LIIAR- using the media terminology

5. Conventions

6. Target audience

7. Title for magazine ideas

To conclude, the magazine front cover I have made, in my opinion, was successful however could have been improved. The analysis was in-depth and I included a thorough evaluation of the LIIAR techniques: Language, Institution, Ideology, Audience, Representation.