Research - Music Magazine Contents Page - Similar Product Research

By Deanna Hammond-Blackburn

 

 

This contents page is a single page with 7 main images of the feature articles in the magazine. The largest image is of the lead singer of the band Crystal Castles, Alice Glass. She is dressed in a green jacket, black crop top and black skirt with ripped tights, white sunglasses and her hair is dyed pink.  Different aspects of her outfit give different representations; the black short top and skirt portray her in a stereotypically sexual way. The green coat shows a more masculine representation and the pink hair and ripped tights conform more to her indie genre of music. This mixture of representations in this type of magazine is common, but it’s different to the male representations as they are usually completely focused on the emotional/personality side to the music, whereas for women they focus on both the physical and emotional representations. This method of female representations should be considered in our own product. This main image is located slightly higher than centre page which emphasises its status as the main article.

The other 6 images are all of men and show the code and convention of this genre by representing their music rather than sexuality and masculinity. The images are a mix of full shot, mid shot and close ups, and they all have anchorage text beneath them and all the anchorage texts involve pulled quotes. The 6 smaller images are split into 2 by the fonts of the anchorage texts as 3 have mainly thinner sans serif font while the other 3 have mainly thicker sans serif font. The larger image’s pulled quote is in serif font with the caption in sans serif. This mixture of fonts makes the main article eye-catching and further emphasises its prominence in the magazine.

“I was wringing the sweat out of my clothes. My wig almost came off.” Within this pulled quote of the main image are some lingual iconic and indexical signs. ‘Sweat’ signifies heat and strenuous activity; this represents the band as being very enthusiastic and passionate about their profession. ‘Wig’ is an iconic sign of fake but colourful or wild hair; subtly representing the personality of the band.

The register of the language on the contents page is consultative as there are no colloquialisms and the tenor is quite formal without making it impersonal. This makes the magazine appeal more to the slightly more mainstream and older target audience of 17-25 year olds who want the maturity. This is an effective way to show the magazine’s unique selling points.

In the bottom right there is a flash promoting NME subscription. This is red with white serif font and small images of different editions of the magazine. The brightness of the red contrasts against the simple white background of the rest of the page, this attracts the attention of the reader and serves as an effective way to promote the subscription. This is a good technique to use in our magazine.