Research: Analysing a Front Cover

This is my analysis of a music magazine front cover for the same genre as i would like to continue with. Billboard magazine is of the pop music genre and includes a famous celebrity on the cover and double page spread interview with them, which is why it was a relevent choice for my research.

Feedback 27.1.11

Well done Kirsty. This is good work. Please also ensure you upload the sketch/plan for the prelim contents page also. Mike or Nikki will scan it for you if you ask them. Please continue your research tasks for homeowrk. You will need to analyse a real front cover, contents and feature article next. Also book a workshop time with Mike or Nikki for next week.

Mrs A

Preliminary Task

For my preliminary exercise i had to create a front cover for a new college magazine using InDesign and Photoshop. In this cover i had to include a photo of a student in medium close-up, appropriately laid out text and a masthead. I included a barcode image, the date, price, appropriate headlines and the college logo to make the cover look more professional.
Throughout this task i have learnt many of the basic photoshop techniques e.g. cutting, cropping, changing opacity of images and text boxes etc. I had never before been on the InDesign programme and so didn't know the first thing about it, but due to this task i have learnt the basic skills and will be able to take them forward into producing my coursework piece.
Although this front cover is very basic, it does follow many of the conventions of magazines. It includes a barcode, date and price on the cover. There is a main photograph using direct address as the person is looking straight out of the magazine cover and attracting the reader. My magazine cover also follows a colour scheme of blue and white.
If i was to do this task again i would concentrate more on the cutting out of my photograph and add more creativity to the colour scheme, text and overall cover.

This is the contents page i created for my magazine, the colour scheme is blue and yellow which relates back to the colours of the college logo.

Conventions of Magazines

All magazines wether they are Lifestyle, Fashion or Music, follow all the same rules. There are different types of magazines, the more expensive monthly "glossies" (Q, Marie Claire) or cheaper weekly magazines (NME, More). They will all include relevent images, logos and headers, modes of address, stars and celebrities, front covers, contents pages and feature articles.
The imagery included must always be relevent to the genre of the music and appropriate for the target audience, this also applies to the name (also known as the header) of the magazine. There will always be a set colour scheme throughout the magazine which will add to creating a "house style" and appeal to the target audience.
All magazines will have modes of address, this is the way that a text creates a relationship with its audience. Most magazines will use direct address, which is created when the person on the cover looks straight out of the magazine which gives the impression that they are inviting the reader in. Although, other magazines may use indirect address which is when the person looks away causing the opposite effect on the reader, this is not a convention though it has been used.
The main advertisement of a magazine is its front cover. This is why they will more than likely include celebrities on their covers, to attract the target audience and so increase sales and profit. Covers should be bright and interesting so they are sure to catch the readers eye. Not only should the colours and font types be attractive but they should be relevent and represent that particular genre of music. All covers should include a title/header, slogan, one main model.star photographed (though in music magazines it can be a group), a leading caption, subheadings and straplines. As well as these a date and barcode, sometimes a web address too should be included. Contents pages should be bright and colourful to encourage the reader to read on into the infomation of the pages to follow.
A feature article, also known as a double page spread, is uaually the most expensive article in the whole magazine. There shoudl be catchy headlines and subheadings to catch the readers attention. Feature articles should include one large image and multiple smaller ones, which are usually taken in a different location and setting to add depth to the article.

My initial ideas

For my music magazine i would like to focus a teenage pop genre, including a contents page, a double page spread interview and front cover of either a girl band, boy band or mixed sex band. The target audience for my magazine will be young girls around the ages of 11-15 years old. I decided to choose this type of magazine because it is a genre that will call for a lot of demand from the target audience i previously mentioned.