Research and Planning: Textual Analysis of a Magazine Front Cover

This is a music magazine, which mainly concentrates on a particular genre that is rock and heavy metal music. They use the maximum colors of three that are white, red and black. These are masculine colors, which looks as if it only appeals to males.  The masthead is behind the music rock band, which seems to mean that they are more important, and they are also more confident enough and they are a well-known magazine for the viewers to not show their entire music magazine name. The masthead also has scratches into it, which adds to the rock theme of the magazine.

   They have puffs such as ‘The UK’s Biggest gig guide’ this is saying that you cant get this anywhere else, which means you have to buy this in order to know where all of the gigs are. There are a lot of cover lines which tells the audience that the music magazine have a lot to say, which will also convince the audience to buy this. One quote from ‘korn’- a very popular band says ‘I wanted to kill myself’ this is a shocking thing to say and will also shock the audience when they read this. However, it will also make them want to buy this as everyone wants to know why, when and how.

 Within this magazine you can also get free posters, which means that this will also be another reason t buy the magazine, as teenagers are likely to want posters to put on their wall, and because most teenagers do not have much money, this would be a good option of magazine to choose.

   The central image is of a band that is most popular in the rock culture, they are presented in a way, which you can tell who is the main member of the band with the positioning of the members. The band members are looking towards the camera seeing the eye contact, which would attract the audience as they are engaging with you.

   Overall, the magazine clearly illustrates what type of magazine this is, and who it is aimed at. This is what I would need to do if I was to aim my magazine at a particular audience. I would need to think about the color, layout and typography of the whole magazine.