Front page reasearch main task

Research for Music magazine.

For the research into my music magazine I will look at other existing professional music magazines to get inspiration and ideas into what I could put into my music magazine. The parts of the magazine that I will look at are the front cover, contents page and the double-page spread. I will evaluate them and see why they have used certain fonts, why the pictures are where they are and how the pages are spread out.

Front Page

            In the front cover of q magazine the title of the magazine is in the top left hand side of the page. This is consistent with other music magazines such as the NME special edition cover seen below q magazine.

The colour schemes in both the magazines are roughly the same they both use either a dark background with lighter text in the foreground or the opposite. This is done so the text and pictures have a good contrast and can therefore both be seen with relative ease. Both of the artists shown are filling up most of the front page and there is very little text around there facial features. This is done to emphasise there importance on the front page. Both of the artists names are used in bold writing again to show the reader that there is a major item or interview about them in the magazine. The text of the artists name is situated at roughly at the bottom part of the page to show its importance to the reader and to show that the main story is about them.

The sub texts are in the top right and along the left hand side of the magazine to stop the overcrowding of the middle of the page which then allows the artists picture to be left on it’s own allowing for a better view of the artists.

In q magazine there is an advertisement at the bottom of the magazine at a slight upward slant to the rest of the page.

The pictures of the artists are both very large and take up most of the front page there is generally another picture on the front page but it is generally much smaller than the main feature picture.

The subtitles that are in both magazines are specifically written to attract an audience towards them. For example in NME there is statement from the artist Florence which reads, “I would never have got through the X Factor auditions” this an extremely strange statement to make as she is a successful artist and the X Factor is a competition that promotes good singers. This means that the audience is enticed to buy that magazine as it is an eye catching line to make.

In Q magazine there are many artists’ names in the sub-titles so an audience may like that sort of music or the music that they like and see it on the front cover. By having a broad range of artist published on the front of there magazine it will attract people to it.

Also when they are advertising the freebies in the magazines they are always advertised in very bold and capitalised fonts. They draw exceptional attention as they stand out from the page. This is seen in Q magazine when the freebies that they are advertising are in a different colour from the rest of the front page and they also span the width of the front page.

The barcodes in both the magazines are both at a vertical angle to minimize the space that is taken up by them.

Also in a number of other magazine they have the words, “exclusive” and “special” these words create a response with an audience because it makes them think that the magazine that they are purchasing has something different and better than other magazines that are on sale. Also it attracts attention to a particular story often the story is something that the reader would not expect; it comes as a surprise to them.

The fonts that they use on the front page of the magazine are often in a completely and none related colour to the rest of the front page. This is done to make them stand out from the rest of the page and draw the audiences’ attention to them. Also the font style is very clear and they will often use they use the same font for the front page for nearly all texts. They do not change the font to much as it would crowd the page with a lot of items such as different fonts, colours, and pictures. It would make the magazine to difficult to read and no one would read it.
Generally in all magazine front covers the most important information is on the left hand side or right hand side of the page as this is how they are stacked on shelves in shops. It is on the left or right  because the magazines are overlapped over each other and  information be seen by the customers who will now be able to see what they want with the information on one side. Not in the middle of the page or at the bottom.