Front Cover Analysis 2

The rolling Stones magazine was started in 1967, Is owned by Wenner Media LCC and sells around 1.4million copies every 2 weeks.

I chose to deconstruct this front cover as it was hard to locate a local music magazine (Perhaps suggesting a gap in the market for this kind of product?) and that this magazine cover features one of the biggest bands at the moment on one of the most popular music magazine cover at the moment, I wanted to see the conventions RollingStone uses to help maintain its popularity.

The main focal point of the cover is easily the central image. This image is of the band Kings Of Leon, the Mese en Scene of the image shows the band wearing ‘western’ type cloths similar to the style ‘cowboys’ were from the south of America which is ironic because of the fact the band originate from that area. The banner near the bottom of the cover is in a western looking font as it has a button hole effect often associated with that area of America, all of which contributed to the western style of the cover.

The magazine’s famous masthead on this cover is layered behind the image of the band; this is quite significant as it goes against typical conventions of having the masthead big, bright and visible so that customers can quickly identify the text with a particular brand. This in my opinion gives the impression that the band Kings OF Leon is a bigger institution then the magazine itself and this is RollingStone’s way of finally acknowledging them after not featuring the band once during their 2 previous talent filled records. The main image is also on this occasion been taken outside of their studio which in relatively rare for a RollingStone cover which again could be perceived as suggesting this cover has a deeper meaning to it.

The Puffs on the cover are worded well and do a good job of advertising what is included in the rest of the magazine while fitting in the western theme, for example “The Dead On Tour” gives the reader an open imagery of a band roaming free on a tour of the land, again something that could be stereotyped with a western ‘cowboy’ style. “The God-Fearing, Booze-Swilling Rise of America’s Hottest Bands” is another very stereotypical feature on this western style cover as the ‘deep south’ of America is rightfully or wrongfully associated with religion, alcohol and old fashioned ethics, however “Rise Of America’s Hottest Bands” suggests once again that this band are very big, and are breaking this stereotype that surrounds their region of residence by setting a good example and becoming extremely successful.

In conclusion I believe that this cover of the RollingStone magazine’s mode of address is to display the Kings of Leon as a huge band, but not an unoriginal one. To many the Kings of Leon are only recognised for their newest to date multiplatinum selling album ‘Only by The Night’ and in my opinion this cover does well to convey KOL’s real background, their roots, influences and at the same time advertises their previous less known records that all have a noticeable modern country sound to them. Therefore to summarise, the conventions displayed on this cover are a mixture of conventional and unconventional, they blend together well to give it a great looks and bring across its mode of address very well, I will certainly use some of the features in the creation of my music magazine front cover.

Front Cover Analysis

NME (New Musical Express) is a popular music magazine brand owned by the Time Warner Company. I have chosen this magazine front cover to analyse as it has many of the normal conventions a typical music magazine has included.

From the looks of it, this magazine is aimed at people aged from 13 – 21, there is a bright colour scheme used, The text looks like it has been cut out and stuck onto the page giving a very informal feel to the cover and there is also a give away promotion.

The main central image is a picture of the band Bloc Party, the mise n cene of the image shows the band members are all wearing modern, casual looking clothes and the image itself is once again a cut out. I believe that the images mode of address for this magazine Is a young casual student way which is also I feel the relationship it wants with its reader, the cover wants the reader to feel as if it is a casual student type product so that more of the student type demo graph will buy the magazine believing that the content is focused on relating to themselves.

On this edition the band Bloc Party is on the front cover and almost straight away you can tell why, there is a CD attached to the magazine and the masthead has in large letters that there is a “Free Bloc Party” CD included, the reason for this is also made clear as a smaller banner on the right of the cover shows “New Flux Single Remixes”. This type of promotion benefits the band as well as the magazine as the offer of free goods will almost always persuade more people to buy a product, the band get extra exposure and mostly likely increase record sales because people might enjoy the free songs and decide to buy more.

The puffs on the left of the central image are full of exciting adjectives that describe interesting articles that feature within the magazine in order to entice potential customers into purchasing the product. On the right of the central image the puffs focus on what the magazine is giving away, and its promotions. All of the puffs are in informal fonts and colours again appealing to a younger demo graph.

In conclusion I believe that the informal layout, bright attention seeking colours, free give a way’s, puff’s and cut out style image all appeal to a younger demo graph of students and attract them into buying the magazine very well, I will certainly use some of these conventions and ideas in the creation of my product.

Questionnaire Analysis

The first question from my questionnaire was to document if the subject's gender was predominately male or predominately female. This is necessary as any conclusions i may draw from the sample will be affected by whether the majority of the sample is male or female. The graph itself shows that the majority of the subject's are male meaning that my conclusion will be based on a majority of male opinions.

The second question from my questionnaire was to document roughly what the subject’s age was. This is necessary as any conclusions I may draw from the sample will be affected by the samples age. The graph itself shows that the majority of my subject’s are between the ages of 16.5 – 25.5, meaning that my conclusion will be based mainly on the opinions of people who stereotypically would be classed as teenagers /students /young adults.

The third question from my questionnaire was to document roughly how often the subject’s bought music magazines. This is necessary as any conclusions I may draw from the sample will be affected by the samples buying habits. The graph itself shows that the majority of my subject’s buy a music magazine once every month, meaning that my conclusion will be based on a target audience with a buying frequency of one issue a month.

The forth question from my questionnaire was to document roughly what the main factors the subject’s take in consideration when buying music magazines. This is necessary as any conclusions I may draw from the sample will be affected by the features that influence the samples decision making in terms of purchasing a music magazine. The graph itself shows that the majority of my subject’s buy a music magazine once every month, meaning that my conclusion will be based on a target audience with a buying frequency of one issue a month.

The fifth question from my questionnaire was to document what genre my subject’s preferred. This is necessary as any conclusions I may draw from the sample will be affected by what genre of music my sample prefers as customising a music magazine to a certain genre is how a product applies to a niche in the market. The graph itself shows that the majority of my subject’s prefer rock or indie music magazine, meaning that my conclusion will factor in their taste in music.

The sixths question from my questionnaire was to document what brand/type of music magazine my subject’s would “most likely buy”. This is necessary as any conclusions I may draw from the sample will be affected by what brand/type of music magazine my sample prefers as this will aid me in deciding which existing products to deconstruct as part of my research. The graph itself shows that the majority of my subject’s prefer NME or Local music magazines, meaning that my conclusion will involve deconstructing and studying the conventions used in these types of magazines.

The seventh question from my questionnaire was to document the locations/institutions my subject’s would “most likely buy” a music magazine from. This is necessary as any conclusions I may draw from the sample will be affected by where my sample would buy their music magazines from as it will help me understand the network of distribution these types of magazine better and aid me in my evaluate later on in the blog. The graph itself shows that the majority of my subject’s buy music magazines from their local newsagents and retailers, meaning that my conclusion will involve ways in which best to distribute my final product.

Conclusion
From the results I have collected using my questionnaire I can conclude that the piece of media text I will be creating should be aimed towards a male audience between the ages of 16 & 26, I should look to make the text a ‘once-a-month’ product and give particular attention to having an attractive main central image, a good promotion and low price. The genre of the magazine should be rock or indie themed to cater for my target audiences taste in music, and I should research conventions associated with local music magazines and the NME. Researching routes of distribution will also be important in the creation of my product in particular the supply chain that links the printers with News Agents and local retailers.

Music Magazine Questionnaire

The next stage in my project was to gather some research on what to base my music magazine on, e.i. genre, relevence of features, buying habbits, prefered brands and distribution networks.

The Questionniare itself was printed of 10 times me and given out to 10 people, with the results i will analyis the data and then draw a conclusion and within this conclusion i shall incldue evaluation criteria in order to judge the succes of my final product.

The next stage in my research will be a questionnaire analysis, which i will be posting as soon as I have got the relevent data and drawn my conclusions from it.

Preliminary Contents Page

This is image to the left is my final preliminary contents page.

I have included a bright and green main image to use as i think it shows of the school in a very good way. This combined with the formal Serif font used for the masthead and the marque at the bottom of the page displaying the schools accolades, in my opinion achieve the goal of making the school look important and attractive.

Again the blend of newsletter/Magazine conventions is included on this page. The Newsletter being represented via for formal fonts used and the layout of the contents while the Magazine is being represented via the main image taking up most of the page which is feature that is usually very uncommon within Newsletters.

Preliminary Contents Page Draft

This is a draft of my preliminary contents page, the research i used was once again brought from the Deyes High School Newsletter and the St John Bosco School Magazine.

The conclusion i got from this research was to stick with the trend of my pre lim front cover and produce a contents page that had a representational blend of newsletter conventions and magazine conventions.

I have included this blending in my draft by making the contents including a main image, which is typical magazine convention. The newsletter style to my contents page is shown with the marque at the bottom of the page displaying the schools accolades.

Preliminary Front Cover

This image Is my completed front cover for my preliminary task. I tried to blend both formal, and informal elements to create a school newsletter that could also be perceived as a magazine in order to appeal to both students and their parents, as was stated in my research.

I achieved this by using and at the same time increased my knowledge conventions used in publishing. Such conventions include mast heads, puffs, banners, central/main image and formalities/in formalities.

Preliminary Front Cover Draft

Before creating a draft version of a school newsletter/magazine I first had to carry out some research on the typical conventions this type of media text includes. During my research I looked at the Deyes High School newsletter and St John Bosco school magazine.

After looking at both products I discovered how each text differentiated, using this information I could work out who their relative target audiences were. The front cover of the Deyes High School newsletter I thought was aimed at the students parents seeing as its features were very formal, Serif fonts were used and there was no image, stereotypically speaking adults tend find this kind of formal, factual layout more aesthetically pleasing than children/adolescents do. However the same could not be said for the St John Bosco school magazine, the features that were included (Large image, Puffs, San serif fonts) on its front cover, again, stereotypically speaking tend to be more aesthetically pleasing to students who often appreciate visual aids more then their parents.

Knowing this, I thought would create a unique product and try and combine certain conventions of the two different styles of school paper which would hopefully appeal to both parents and students therefore widening my demographic and potential audience.

Above is a drafted image of my front cover with labels included explaining why I have chosen the features and what I hope they will achieve. If the image is too small to view in its current state then it can be enlarged by right clicking it.

The next step in my project is to research the conventions of a school newsletter/magazine contents page, and create a draft version based on my findings, I will use the same two products that I used for researching front covers as I hope to learn about any consistency they may have used in colour schemes, layout etc and implement some of this into my project.

Introduction

Hello and welcome to my blog, during the next 6 - 7 months i will be updating this with regular posts including details of my coursework and the research i have done. My overall aim is to provide a portfolio of my work, for the readers to clearly understand how i have completed my coursework and how it has developed over time. If i have achieved this by the end of the allocated time i will judge this project to be a success.

The brief i have been given is split into two tasks. The first task is preliminary task and will consist of creating a front page and contents page for a school newsletter/magazine, the second task will be the main task and that will consist of creating an front page, content page and double page spread for an original music based magazine. Primary and Secondary research aimed at my target demograph will be used throughout the task to shape what the final product will look like.

My intentions are to successfully create a product that fans from a specific music genre can identify with, it will have to include features and colour schemes relevant to the genre, while being original in its own way.

The first thing I intend to do is start on my preliminary task of creating a school newsletter/magazine, to achieve this i will first look at existing school papers and possibly blogs from other students, this will give me a better understanding of the conventions and features that school newsletters include.

Finally on the subject of research, i plan on carrying out as much of it as possible, this is because as of now, my knowledge of target audience's for, conventions and colour schemes is very limited. I believe the best way of doing this would be to analyse existing products and point out the reasons why certain features where included. By doing this i will hope to achieve a better understanding of what appeals to their customers and implement some of these idea's into my own creation.