Music magazine annotations.

Music magazine cover 1

The front cover of this magazine has a large plain white masthead that is hidden by the main image with the person's bright red unruly hair on the front of the magazine. The front page has very few colours, mainly two sets of contrasting colours, black and white and red and yellow. This attracts the intended audience as the bright bold colours draw the reader to the person shown. The large image in the centre of the page is also further emphasised by the simple dull white background.

The masthead is very simple but looks like it is being crossed out which could suggest that the magazine is showing people that things in life don't have to be right to be fun. This could be because most of the population have never read the magazine and so when they see it they think that this is the wrong type of magazine for them. Another reason for the crossed out effect of the title could be due to the anarchy of rock music. Rock music in particular, has an image of not following any rules and by scratching away at the title, suggesting that the magasine follows this relative stereotype.

The magazine has smaller images which in most cases can put the reader off as they have to focus more of their attention on seeing what the images are of, but in actual fact it helps further portray the broken side of the magazine. The magazine does not follow many of the main conventions of an average sports or fashion magazine and is breaking many rules. This affects the reader as it shows what type of person the reader is and what type of music they listen to. The reader would have to be the type of person that does not care about fitting in and so the reader and the magazine are linked.


The overcrowded nature of the magazine, due to the cell lines, may also draw the intended target audience in, as you just don't know what to read first. This helps the audience interact and understand what the magazine is about, showing that many of the bands inside this magazine are just like the bands on the cover. This could also suggest that the bands are fun and are not organised, like the cover, in fact they are spontaneous, which could suggest that the magazine is interesting to read. The way the cover is laid out could represent the type of people in the magazine and this could attract some new, potential readers. Some of the main image hides part of the masthead. This was no problem as even covering it partially does not affect how the reader understands what the magazine is about through the masthead. Overcrowding of the cover also suggests that there is a lot of information contained within the magazine and therefore would lead the audience to believe Kerrang is good value for money.

The main audience of this media type are individuals who like listening to rock music (or simular music types) or people researching rock bands, their music and lifestyle so that they can see what they should expect when visiting a concert. The red hair attracts many people as this is the colour that the eyes see first. This may also be that as style increases red hair is a more popular colour. now more people die their hair red and so this could also attract new readers. The colour red also stands out against both the masterhead and the background making the person photographed seem to step off the magazine and into the real world. The messy nature of the person's hair also reflects the whole image of standing out from the crowd as you would find it difficult to imagine a successful business man with the hair or dress sense of the individual portrayed on the front of the magazine.

The sky line on this cover is red too. This could be because the creator of the magazine wanted to use the colour red as a colour theme on the magazine. Red is the most common colour on this cover which makes it eye-catching to the audience. The tag line is unusual as instead of using a popular catch phrase they have used a tag line to tell us what is happening to some of the bands in the magazine. The background of the tag line is also red and so this could suggest that even though the writing is small does not mean it is not important, and so the creator wants to make even the small writing stand out. In this magazine the colour red indicates a certain element of danger within the magazine. This could present a warning to specific audience types that would be offended by the content shown.

I like this magazine structure and could use some elements of it when making my magazine since this is the general genre of the magazine i wish to create. I am attracted to how the band name is large and bold in front of the bands picture. I think i could use this idea in my own work. I also like the smaller images, that inform the audience of what is expected in the music magazine. This shows what type of music magazine i want to create and would express the intended audience about the type of music written about inside.

The things i would not incorporate in my magazine is the boring, non-catchy sky line as this wastes space on the cover that i could use for something else. I would prefer to create a catchy slogan that attracts the reader to the magazine. I also like how the name of the band is covering the lead singer of the band. The rest of the band are not needed on the cover as this might draw less attention to him.