Music Magazine Research

Research

NME (New Musical Express) is a music magazine that fits into the genre of indie/rock. This genre is conveyed well within the front cover image for this particular issue; the colours are very earthy, classic and vintage. The title and the main coverline stand  out as they are brighter colours that can clearly be seen, they are; white and red. There is also a small use of black text as the headings of the coverlines to stand out against the white text. The image in the top right hand corner of the man smoking is very edgy. It of one of the members from 70's rock band 'Joy Division', and the posters of them found within the magazine are seen  as 'iconic'. This word iconic means its a must see, classic photos. The coverlines are all introducing acts and celebrities that feature within the magazine, a few of the coverlines just list names and some mention the story/article below.

This is the contents page taken from the first page of the same magazine; NME. The colours are very dark and dull; red, black and white, which helps the text to be clear to read and understand. The font size is small in places, like underneath the article heading where it mentions a bit about the article. It is very clear when the headings of article types are listed such as; News, Radar, Live!. Also only one main image has been used taken from inside the magazine, this is helped to illustrate the article information. The image fills up most of the contents page,  maybe indicating that this act or band feature highly in the magazine. Also there is an advertisement at the bottom of the page, to try to sell a subscription to the readers.

Q magazine, much like NME is a music magazine that includes a majority of music variety from different genres. So this magazine could appeal to anyone at any point. The big Q logo is always the same, always set in the same place, the top left hand corner. The logo seems to take up a lot of the front cover. The front cover images fills up the whole page, it is very colourful and is hard to make out the singer, Chris Martin. His trousers seem to blend in with the darker parts of the background. All of the text on the cover appear in either white or yellow, these are both fresh colours that stand out and contrast the dull and dark. Two of the coverlines have used numbers within them, which indicates there maybe charts of lists found within the magazine. Along the bottom of the cover, a small almost tagline appears with the names of the acts or bands that appear in the magazine. The small plus before the text indicates added more, or also included.

This is the contents page taken from an issue of Q magazine. Once agin this contents page only features 3 or 4 colours; red, white, black and grey. Most of the text is black and in a small font size, making it hard to read. The heading article types have been used again here too with; features and every month. One main big image appears on the contents page of a band or act that must feature highly within. There is also a small section where all the reviews of gigs or acts have been placed neatly into a box, so they can easily stand out amongst the other article stories. The layout is set out in boxes that all fit together to keep it neat and so everything similar is kept together.