House styles for my magazine

Kay Murphy

These 3 front covers have all the same features in common. They both show the exact music genre and are the exact magazine brand. NME is a British journalism article which alternates from rock and indie. They use the same font as you can see for their masthead on every magazine they publish, this is because it’ll be eye opening and easy for their audience to visualise the magazine.

On all 3 posters, they have enough information but not a lot. I believe they pursue this purely because they want their target audience to be drawn into the bright colour scheme which you can see is red, white, yellow and black. The aluminous colours immediately catch anyone’s eye. The information that they’ve positioned on the magazine also captures audience but more towards their immediate target audience. The information that is shown is always publicised through straplines, taglines that advertise other popular bands through posters, critic reviews and more interesting music news. And of course, the main cover line of the popular band that’s positioned over, under, above or below the main image of the band that the magazine is specifically about inside of the magazine. Here the main image is either in colour or black and white, either way; it is affective to their specific audience as its big and bold linking also to the main cover line of what the genre is mainly showing in a sense here is rock/indie.

I would target my audience on both genders from the age of 16+. This is because it is suitable for the age that I have chosen as the magazine does contain certain language that isn’t okay for ages under 16 and under.

Analysis of magazine front cover

Both double page spreads are positioned in the exact same way. That the main focus on this page is the main image of the band the magazine will be interviewing. A medium close up and long shot just captures the whole band as what they are with them holding instruments or being in a dark room with lights directly on them. In a sense, these two main images show the starting of popularity for both bands which and the hold on they’ll be or do have on their audience/fans. Both bands are from different music genres which highlight the whole picture in itself.

The first double page spread, you know the band as the masthead states the band’s name ‘The Vaccines’. They’re pure indie rock music and share the same music as Arctic Monkeys, The Rolling Stones etc. which if no one knew The Vaccines, you’d immediately know the other two bands I have mentioned as they have been around longer than The Vaccines have. Underneath the masthead, the two columns have a lot of information souly on this band which proves they have been around for a while and have become more and more popular over the years. On both magazines, the journalist has had a Q&A with the bands from the quotation marks which has been used as a masthead on the second double page spread. Picking out the specific quote, tells the audience reading the article what sort of band they are? What music they involve in? Questions like that capture the reader straight away without giving too much away for them to carry on reading into the article.

The house style is suttle as the main image plays the key part of the article. Colours that have been used are blacks for the text on top of a grey background which is clear to see and read. Blue and purple just resemble boys/men which are what you can see in front of you on the page.

Analysis of double page spread

Analysis of contents page

What immediately catches my eye is the main image in the middle and the masthead and strapline above. It’s positioned out nice and not at all messy. It’s all neat and tidy for you to take a look at and visualise closely at certain parts on the contents page that may catch the eye.

Small images are scattered around the page with page numbers on them, if you look down the column, the numbers on the images are spoken about more in depth which I do particularly like which I’d use in my magazine. It’s much easier to identify firstly the image and then secondly it give a brief overview of what will be spoken about on the certain page number which I find useful.

The typical black, red and white just brighten up the contents page and link to the specific music genre. Black and white along with coloured images just also adds a lot more to the meaning of the magazine. Just alternates which I do like also.

I particularly like the way they have positioned everything on one page. It reminds me of sticking and gluing random pictures everywhere but giving it the effect of it working really well. I suppose this shows links with the genre of the magazine as it is to some tastes and not.

Again, adding puffs involves more information that’s relevant to the magazine and what the issue will involve.