Magazine Analysis

Billy Joe Armstrong, lead guitarist and singer of the most iconic rock group of the modern era, that’s why he is the vocal point of the magazine’s cover. This is to quickly see the target audience in which the magazine is aimed at, fans of rock music generally around 16-25. He holding an electric guitar is significant in this instance, it attracts a larger range of people who may not have heard of this particular artist but are into the rock genre, another indication of who the magazine is aimed at. This particular image almost look as it is taken mid concert through the wet hair and him seeming like he is looking towards an audience of people, it is to give an early impression of what the article on him and his band are being talked about, a mid-tour report.

There are not many other images accompanying the main image, except the slipknot image. Slipknot are a band that have been around for years coming and going, so they seem quite appealing to an older generation, considering it is titled ‘slipknot storm memory lane’ a vague title with possible suggestions to a numerous amount of things such as a concert, so those interested want to know what it means and what slipknot are doing.

In comparison to other front covers this one doesn’t have many cover lines; this is to focus the audience on the main cover line. The bands mentioned in these cover lines e.g. Muse and Alice in Chains give the impression that the magazine focuses on fans of rock music, so a teenage generation. ‘Green Day’ being the main cover line, which supports the main image, giving an overview of the primary story in this edition, it also is supported with a short description on what they’re going to say about Green Day to encourage consumers to buy the magazine.

Kerrang’s masthead instantly gives the impression that the music is loud and heavy, shown through the cracked style on the masthead and the exclamation mark at the end. The font does change colour through issues in this instance it is white to contrast with the main image and highlight the image more. The mastheads font looks spray painted on, this fashion of font shows that the music is very anarchistic and the spray paint shows this.

Magazine front covers are always split into thirds, this is to make the layout of the magazine easier for the consumer to recognise sections on the cover and keep some order within the magazine. The left third and right third has stories about what is featured in the magazine, where the centre includes the picture highlighting the main section of the magazine. They keep the stories smaller and separated in order to keep out the way of what the editors believe is the most important section. 

Main image is a picture of T.I an influential rap artist throughout the music industry, many fans of rap knows him as he has been in this genre of music for a long time and produces quality music as voted by a large amount of the population. This gives a quick realisation of who the magazine is aimed at, music goers and rap lovers. As per usual rap artists on the front of a magazine seem stern and forthcoming, to show that the music is serious and has meaning to it that the everyday person can relate to. T.I even looks like he is pointing directly to the reader with his hands, how it holds meaning to him and the target audience. There are no other images on this cover it is trying to keep the attention on T.I. and rap In general, the masthead is even covered by T.I.’s head to show he has taken over ‘Vibe’ and that rap is the most dominant feature in the magazine.

The cover-lines are all mentioning large music producers in the rap industry, and nothing but artists. There is no mention, or very little, on small artists or petty features included in the issue. All of these cover lines are scaled based on their importance in the edition, larger text for artists then decreasing size explanations on the articles. Text that the magazine producer wants people to see are highlighted in white and what is not as important is red, for example Keri is red whilst H

ilson is white as people are noticed on last names more predominantly.  The main cover line is in white as it is an important section, it also contains a quote that ends with three dots giving the impression there’s more to it that they will have to read in the magazine.

The font is important in rap as it shows what they represent; they have bold colours white, red and navy. Shows that they are straight up with their music with the use of prime colours, it shows their points of view through their music, this is why the text style is very clear even if it seems plain.

Vibes masthead even if it seems boring and plain it actually represents a lot, it is straight up and clear, easy for the reader to see a simple representation that the magazine is all for the readers benefits and rap music is clear and easy to be interpreted through the lines. Above this is the selling line, what the editors will believe is the highlight of their magazine so they make it the second thing read after the masthead. The use of the words cool, crazy and crass are all words that’s commonly used with the target audience Vibe are going for, having a connection like this with the consumer  will make it feel personal to them.

The rule of thirds is used here to keep an organised layout in order to make it easier for the reader to grasp with cover lines going down the left and right third, then the main image in the middle third. This separation of about one cover line per section makes certain that they are all separate articles.

The contents page is designed to make the readers life easier by guiding them towards articles and news stories on topics they want. This one does exactly that in many ways, it has most of the pages highlighted on this page with page numbers in red font next to the black page titles in black. This gives clear separation of the different texts; these are also grouped under the yellow and black titles to give further understanding of what is included in the articles.

Kerrang is a picture heavy magazine so the contents seem to be fuller than other contents pages, the pictures of prizes, other magazine covers and other pictures related to the magazines content. The main picture is clearly indicating what page the band Dragonforce is articled, it is obvious to the reader that this is the main article due to the amount of space it is covering on the contents. The colours used on that picture are used to extrude Herman Li from the background to draw attention to the foreground; a grey background is used for that as it is a plain background that no one pays attention to.

Font colours used are white, black, yellow, and red. This contrast of different colours can easily show the reader the difference between titles, descriptions, page numbers etc… Style used for fonts is very plain, the title ‘Kerrang!’ is identical to the magazines masthead, and this repetition is important as it stops confusion and keeps the magazine looking professional. The other font styles, though bland, are easily readable keeping it clear and easy for the reader to understand. Titles use a style that has a dissolve appearance to it, an impression that it is worn down and not completely formal, still cracks to represent rock culture.

Authors notes keep them seeming involved with the audience, interaction keeps the reader engaged, the author’s notes also expresses their reasons for decisions they made and what they want to tell the reader. The rest of the layout is constant using rows for their page titles, pictures are scattered in some aspects with no order, going against the layout of society, something else to represent this genre of music.

In the top half of the contents page later articles in the magazine are being advertised to show what’s upcoming in the magazine, including the red page numbers as reference to these articles which the editor presumes are important for information or entertainment purposes.

Vibe’s contents is different to other magazines, the reason for this is that it shows what is in the magazine using symbolism other than just telling the audience. What I gather that the story is about Kanye West and love, a mysterious hand holding a heart, this heart is the only thing in colour on the page whilst the rest is grey, white and black. This main image will attract a lot of attention as people like to know current life of celebrities especially in the region of love, Kanye fans will be particularly excited as they want to know about the current affairs of their favourite producer.

The styling of the entire page is very professional and formal, Vibe often puts rap artists in the lime light and their style of music is very bold and ‘straight-up’; so vibe has to follow this style when they cover rap producers, done by using very mellow colours black, white, grey and a small amount of red to draw attention. The actual contents section on the right side seems quite small compared to the rest of the page and only has two titles ‘features’ and ‘fashion’, and very little amount of page references to the rest of the magazine, Vibe possibly using the audiences curiosity to get them to buy.

What Kanye is wearing is very intricate, and he is notorious for his fashion trends, this is probably to advertise the fashion portion of the magazine as this magazine seems to cover a broad range of topics in each magazine, keep the spectrum of consumers large.

Font styling looks uninteresting but can seem striking when considering the content of the magazine, especially ‘contents’ at the top. The page descriptions and articles underneath ‘features’ and ‘fashion’ use the same style of font but in a less bold format as it is not trying to draw in a consumer. The grouping titles seem classy as formality is a big aspect the magazine has to take into consideration and keep repeating throughout. 

The font style is intricate, the black boxes and very large size makes it more interesting than other double page spreads. The newspaper clipping style shows that it is about a story that was in the newspaper that she will be discussing.  An uneven title gives the article an impression of having a disordered portrayal. The reason for this style is to make it eye catching, it’s done this through being big and loud taking up two thirds of one page. It is also a quote from Lily Allen, and is about a topic that was in the news at the time, so her fans want coverage on what is actually true about their role model.

 Though readers tend to stay away from articles that require more effort to read then what is needed, so bigger bolder text will fit with the articles style. On the other hand smaller font allows for more info.  

Another interesting design for the double page spread is the one image on it taking up a whole page, though highlighting what the article is about there are many other features on the image that makes it appropriate. Her looking directly at the reader makes it welcoming for the reader and more personal for the consumer.  These large design options take up all the room on the page leaving limited room for any unused space which can come across as boring.

However, the article itself text is extremely small and unappealing, there are four columns of text that sends enough information across to the reader for the article to be worth producing so all in all I guess it is successful but it could be made a bit clearer.

The whole theme just comes across as rebellious; Lily is seen as this anyway in the eyes of the public. This explains the not very fashionable clothes, newspaper clippings as the title, and the tattoo on her wrist. People trying to be like her are enticed to read this magazine quite heavily, understand her life and how she goes about it this is what interests people to read. The white, black and red all work with each other extremely well, and these seem to be prominent colours in my own research also, the correlation of colours for example the red names that are connected with the red shirt, makes the article very neat, for an article about a rebellious music producer it seems to stay fairly formal colour scheme wise.

An attention attracting drop capital starts off the article in an appropriate manner due to the fact that it indicates the start of the article, its eye catching because of how bold it is just to keep the text a bit more interesting, as it can come across as extremely dull.

There isn’t a structured layout to where everything’s placed, except the text at the bottom that seems almost grid like, the title is going across Lily Allen’s Picture, the ‘words James McMahon’ isn’t even on a straight line and disorderly.

This double page spread has a layout similar to the last double page with the image taking up a whole page, this is to quickly show who the article is about and if the reader is interested with this particular character before reading the article. However, different to the last there is a lot more information due to the readers of the magazine being older and more knowledge appeals to them. Only two columns though, with less spacing for paragraphs just a long wall of text, where as other double page spreads seem to have more columns in which to give across information.

Gutters are used for readers to not just read directly across in to the next column of text instead of going down, in which they are supposed to read, this one is about a whole centimetre big in order to avoid confusion in the article. Another way to help the reader is the drop capital at the beginning in which to draw attention to the article and indicate the beginning of it, the bold ‘I’ in this case stretches most the way down the first column making it hard to miss the article. The quotation mark before the ‘I’ indicates that there is a quote to  start the article making it more interesting as people want to see what their favourite celebrity has to say about matters in the topic they are being interviewed about.

This being a vogue magazine in which formality is key, a fashion magazine needs to have a good sense of style to it, the word ‘survivor’ is large and takes the top third of the page, this is strong word that they will need to read the article to fully understand what it means fully. The rest of the font for the article is a bland style in which many may find boring, but it’s what looks appealing to readers of this style of magazine.

The image is a main eye catcher with the only colour on the double page spread focusing on Cheryl Cole, colour scheme only using a total of four colours blue, red, white and black three of which used in the picture. The contrast between the makes a stand out image, another important mention of the picture whilst talking about the look is the fact she is looking directly at the reader in which they feel welcome to the page.