Research - Music Magazine Front Cover - Similar Product Research

By Deanna Hammond-Blackburn

This edition of Clash magazine uses a close up shot of James Blake, who is a new and upcoming artist. He is in direct mode of address and is centre frame, and his eyes are on the top horizontal third, which catches the readers’ eye instantly. By framing him like this it gives the representation that he is important: but the yellow background and yellow typography portrays him as physically weaker as yellow is often associated with more emotional things.

The masthead, ‘Clash’, and the strap line – both sans serif fonts - are over the top of the central image, which also reduces the sense of importance and physical strength illustrated by the framing and positioning of the image. This representation is more common in this genre of music as the magazines tend to focus more on the personalities of the musicians rather than the physique, which is breaking the normal masculinity representations. This is shown by the focus on Blake’s face. We should manipulate our use of colour combined with the central image in our magazine in a similar way to help portray the desired representations. The cover photo is anchored to the strap line ‘JAMES BLAKE’, in the bright yellow and simple, clear font, which is very eye-catching; the reader is first drawn in by the central image and then the eye is drawn down to the strap line. This makes the subject of the main article very obvious, which could be a good selling point and a bad selling point; if people like the artist then they will want to buy it, if they don’t like the artist they are much less likely to buy the magazine as a whole. This is something we need to consider when writing the DPS of our magazine.

The puffs on this front cover look quite sophisticated with the black, white and red contrasting against the yellow and checkered pattern of James’s shirt. The colours have connotations of simplicity and clarity, with the red adding excitement and danger.

 Above the masthead there is a freebies advertisement for ‘FREE MUSIC’ in black, this is an effective code and convention of music magazines and we should include one in our magazine. ‘

'Exclusive’ is used as a buzz word quite effectively as this suggests an exceptional and unusual article, thereby making the magazine more interesting. The front cover uses quite a few pugs in black and red to promote the articles; the different pugs are staggered slightly on each side which helps draw the readers’ eye across the page. This makes the cover more interesting and could be a useful page layout to influence ours from.

The central image for this edition of Mojo magazine is a mid-shot of the band Oasis, with at least 3 of them in direct mode of address. The image is very dark, the background is black and their clothes are a range of greys and blacks with minimal white. Two of them are also wearing dark sunglasses. This colour scheme represents the men as very serious with a dark side to their music, this links to the pulled quote ‘We’ve been to the dark side’ which is in red. The red suggests danger and energy. The image also focuses on their faces, suggesting that this magazine also focuses more on the personality and emotional side to the music rather than the physique.

The men are all at different levels in terms of foreground and background; the man completely foregrounded is portrayed as the most important in the group, each after that is then less important than the one in front. In a band each member has an important role so for our magazine I don’t think this technique would give the right representations, even though it does make the image slightly more interesting. However every member is layered over the top of the masthead so this emphasises their importance and represents their influence in the music industry, which could be effective for ours.

The central image is anchored by the strap line ‘OASIS’, in bright white font, like an illuminated sign, it contrasts against the darkness, thereby giving connotations of hope and renewed life. These connotations further link with the pulled quote. The masthead is very bold as the white font contrasts against the black background.

Pugs and puffs are used a lot on this cover which makes the magazine more interesting but also more crowded and unsophisticated. On our magazine we won’t use as many as we prefer the sophisticated look. In the top left is a freebie; ‘FREE CD!’ which is also in a pale grey flash. The light grey helps grab the readers’ attention as it stands out and it also relates to the actual CD as it is also mainly light grey. Linking the freebie and the actual product by colour is a good idea which we could apply to our magazine.