Music magazine research

VIBE magazine
This is an R&B music magazine about music artists, actors and other entertainers owned by Quincy Jones. On this particular cover a body shot of Akon is used but only of his upper body, having the figure with one hand in his pocket and one hand pointing shows the magazine is making a statement. He looks powerful and masculine which suggests the magazine is probably aimed at men or boys. Also having the figure pointing out looks like its pointing out at the person reading it almost attracting someone to pick up the magazine and buy it. The big bold ‘VIBE’ heading is in block capitals with a clear font and clear colour making it easy to see and stand out, and having all the other text and font on the front cover bold and the colourful writing helps it stand out more. The composition of the magazine is set out with the figure being central on the page and informative text on top of Akon either side of his body. It is clear that 3 different layers are used to set out the front cover. The title of the magazine is the first layer, then the figure of Akon is on top of that, and lastly the informative text is on top of that. This layering idea is effective because it makes the cover look less flat and more raised. This makes the magazine stand out more and catches people’s attention. The idea of layering is very popular and used in a lot of magazines.

NME magazine is a very popular punk magazine launched in 1952. Since the start NME magazine has been responsible for; creating the first U.K singles chart, hosting The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks. Bringing punk to the wider world and pioneering funny, critical and truth-telling music journalism.
On this particular cover a body shot of Lily Allen is used but only of her upper body, and mostly her face. The expression on her face is very plain and she is showing an attitude as if she doesn’t care about what people think of her. She is also wearing dull, casual clothes, this is almost suggesting what type of music this magazine is about, her facial expression is very plain and showing an attitude which shows this is a punk/indie genre of magazine. This may suggest that listening to this genre of music will make you feel the same way as what Lily Allen is portraying. Whereas if the cover page had a picture of someone smiling and dressed in bright coloured clothes then this would suggest the music it was portraying was more of a ‘pop’ culture, and it would make the people listening to it feel happy and upbeat. The composition of the magazine is set out with the figure of Lily Allen being central but slightly to the right of the page. The text that reads: ‘LILY ALLEN TAKES ON THE WORLD’ has a black background and white text, the font is very messy with every other letter being slightly bigger than the letter before, giving it a messy and wild look, which again portrays the genre of music this magazine is based on. Also the text that reads: “I can’t keep on living like this. It’s doing my head in” is in a very wobbly font and on a slight slant again making the words look wild and messy. Most of the informative text on the front cover is in basic colours, white, black, yellow and red fonts, which again shows that the genre of the magazine is punk/indie whereas if the genre of music the magazine was portraying was ‘pop’, then the colours would be more bright such as using pink, purple, orange etc. there are 2 circular symbols of text on this front cover and 1 rectangular symbol, which are coming of the page and are on a slant, this again makes the magazine look messy not neat. Like the VIBE magazine it is clear that 3 different layers were used to set out the front cover, the title ‘NME’ and a couple of bits of text are the first layer then the figure of Lily Allen is the second layer on top of that, lastly the bits of informative text on top of that. This idea of layering is very effective because it makes the cover look more raised which makes the magazine stand out more and catches people’s eyes more.