Examples of Music Magazines

These are some examples of R&B magazines and something I noticed that these magazines have in common is the main image of the front cover is taken at close up.This gives a an idea of how my pictures for my magazine front cover should be taken.
Also names of famous artists are enlarged to draw the attention of the target audience. This  feature will also be portrayed on my music magazine.  

Magazine Front Cover

This is my first plan for the music magazine front cover. According to this plan my final draft should have ONE main image; 4-6 smaller images at the top and cover lines along the sides. This plan is inspired by 'VIBE' magazine as it has ONE main image and also does not have a lot of text.
This is just my first plan so my final draft may differ due to modifications.

Vibe Analysis

Vibe

VIBE chronicles the celebrities, sounds, fashion, lifestyle, new media, and business born from urban music. As an authoritative voice, VIBE creates trends as much as it records them. It covers music, educates its readers, and gives back to the community. VIBE serves as a portal to a growing young, trendsetting, multicultural audience. As excellent journalists and innovative marketers, VIBE is the voice of urban music and culture. VIBE provides a democratic digital experience where users are encouraged to provide content. At VIBE print and online will seamlessly relate. 

Taken from: http://www.vibelifestylenetwork.com/

 

Cover

The front cover consists of the masthead/title logo 'VIBE'. The main image of a famous artist 'Lil Wayne'. His facial expression is serious while his body language seems proud as he is holding his head up high. His direction of gaze is not shown as he is wearing shades. The shades accompanied with the slanted hat on his head and body language portrays him as a 'cool' looked up to figure. The cover is very simple as there are only eight cover lines and one image but the image implies the typical R&B vibe as there is jewellery and gold displayed to present the artist as wealthy. This implies that the target audience will be people who aspire to look wealthy and show off thorough clothing.  


This Magazine cover is very different from 'Kerrang' which has numerous images. Also 'Vibe' is quite simple in many aspects such as; the house style, colours and text. The text is white and black, very simple and has no effects while the back ground is a gradient of white to grey.
    On the other hand the masthead/title logo of 'KERRANG' has a smashed effect to illustrate the heavy metal culture. There are a wide range of colours used such as red, blue, light blue, yellow, white and black.

The cover lines promote famous Hip-Hop/R&B artists and other entertainers in this genre such as: Weezy (who is the main image of the magazine), Tupac (a Hip-Hop/R&B legend), George LucasChris Rock (comedian). These featured people are all typed in BOLD CAPS to catch the eyes of the target audience who are interested in music and celebrity life. (film director) and
 

Initial Music Magazine Names

 The Genre I want to do for my music magazine is R&B. I have chosen this Genre because this is the type of music I listen to and know most about.

First Ideas for Magazine Names:

• Bounce
• Bling
• Beatz
• True-Rhythm
• Base Jam
• Remix
• Mixtape
• Encore
• Acapella
• Vybez 

A little about R&B

R&B is an abbreviation of Rhythm and blues and is a genre of popular African American music which originated in the 1940s. It contains sub genres which are Funk, Soul and Neo-Soul.

An existing R&B magazine is Vibe which is founded by producer Quincy Jones. The publication predominantly features R&B and Hip-Hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. The Magazines target demographics is young urban followers of R&B and Hip-Hop. As of 2007, Vibe had a circulation of approximately 800,000.

Analysis for Kerrang

General

• The company that produces the rock magazine 'Kerrang' is Bauer Consumer Media in the UK.
• The target audience for this magazine is 16-25 year olds. The main target audience are rock fans as this is a rock magazine.
• The price for this magazine is £2.20. This price is appropriate as this will appeal to the target audience which will be student or young workers.
• The magazine is published weekly.
• The total circulation sales for Kerrang magazine is 52, 272 within the UK and The Republic Of Ireland
• The approximate monthly revenue streams from advertising is... 

   Cover 

•  The magazine is called 'KERRANG' which is the sound electric guitars make. This connotes that the magazine is aimed at people who play the electric guitar or listen to heavy metal music.
• The masthead/title logo says 'KERRANG' and the font used has jagged sides which gives it an electric tone or feeling. The masthead/title logo also has straight white lines going through it giving it a smashed effect which further implies the heavy metal value. 
• The Main image is a man dressed up in a clown mask, a red jump suit and black leather gloves. You can tell he is wearing a mask and not just painted his face because some facial features like hi eyebrows and cheeks are exaggerated and look plastic. Also his eyes are black which shows his face is covered. The facial expression of the clown is happy/excited as both eyebrows are raised and he also has a big cheeky smile. The clown's direction of gaze and body language is facing forward towards the reader which shows interaction to the reader. Also ht is standing up straight with his legs together which makes it look like he is watching the reader.
• Across the top are small images of rock bands. This attracts their target customers because it shows that posters of their favorite bands and artists are available inside the magazine. There is also an image of a motorhead wine bottle. These images review and introduce new or old bands and are shown inside the magazine as well. 

  Inside

•  'KERRANG' magazines consist of 63 pages in which 19 of these pages are adverts. The categories in which these adverts are ut into are: Gaming, Tickets, CD/DVD, Fragrance and Cothing.
• The adverts in the magazine are mostly music based such as Gig Tickets and products promoted by well known bands. This is to ensure that the target audience are interested in the adverts because they are promoted by their favorite bands, making it more likely for them to spend money. 
• Within the magazine there are 14 double page spreads. The content of each double page spread varies, and have different topics covered on each. The first double page spread is used to advertise a new game for xbox in which it shoes the xbox logo and a car across the double page. This is then followed by numerous other double page spreads which talk about different rock artists, some of the things they have quoted in interviews, information about themselves and what they have been recently getting up to. This covers at least 3 double pages spreads but a different artist is being talked about on each. This is then followed by another 3 double page spread based on live reviews from their live shows. This talks about the way in which the artists performed, where they performed and if their performance was good or bad. It then goes on to talk about 'SlipKnot' who is also the main image on the front cover of the magazine. this includes 3 double page spreads based on the same topic it talks about how 'SlipKnot' came about, a story about it and also a mini interview of one of the members.

Preliminary Task Content Page

This is the content page for my magazine.

Preliminary Task Front Page

This is my preliminary task Front page.

Preliminary Planning

This is the planning and ideas of my preliminary task.

AS BRIEF

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP. 

 

Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as group task, each member of the group to produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style).