Nicole Holder

MY MUSIC MAGAZINE ANALYSIS

The masthead this magazine has chosen is a large one, we can see this because the top section of the magazine is occupied by the masthead only. They have used white for the obvious reason of

capturing the readers attention by contrasting against the colours used on the background layer of the magazine. The masthead also contains symbols which are two triangles and a circle around the

‘R’ which I believe is the magazines logo and identity. The masthead is in text slang which leads me to believe that the

magazine is aimed at a younger audience probably around the age of 17-20.

In the main image of this music magazine there are three young men looking directly at the camera. From the reader’s point of

view it looks as if these young men are looking at them, the purpose of this could be to achieve intimacy or some sort of bond or the aim could be for the subjects in the image to appear tough

to compliment the magazine’s appearance.

Also, I believe that due to the fact that dubstep is not such a big music genre the young men in the main image do not overlap the

masthead like conventional music magazines because they’re status is not as ‘big’ as the magazine’s identity.

A long shot makes up the main image however the two men on the right are only visible from the waist up because the rest of their body is obstructed by text and artistic graphics. This leads me to believe that the two young men on the right are not as important

as the man on the left.

This is the main cover line of the magazine, we know this because it is the boldest, brightest and largest of all the other cover lines, it is almost as large as the masthead which could mean that it is the

second most important feature on the magazine and that the reader should notice this secondly. The cover line reads ‘The

Summer of Dub’ which is a play on the words of lyrics of a song, this tells us that this issue of the magazine was released in summer

and it is a summer edition which is probably why it is the second most important feature, because it informs the reader that it is a

summer edition. This cover line could also suggest that the magazine is aimed at fans who are serious about this genre of

music and would have a summer filled with listening to dubstep.

This magazine does not have a price on it so I think that the magazine is expensive because the smaller the print of the price is, the more

expensive it is.

The front cover of this magazine contains 4 cover lines 3 of which are small and one is

large.

The layout of this magazine is informal and unconventional. Most music magazines are

formal in their organisation of font size, cover lines and colour of words. The graphic effects are all created to ‘shout’ at the reader e.g. The

main cover line, the puff in the bottom right corner at an angle and the top left corner.

The colour scheme used is made up of the colours blue, green, pink, yellow orange and

white but mainly orange, white, pink and blue. The orange and the yellow could relate to

summer e.g. the colours of the sun; as does the green which could relate to the colour of

the grass. The blue could connote the colour of the sky when it is summer, the pink could link to the colour of the sky when the sun rises in

the summer and the white is a colour that matches and ties all the colours together.

The masthead chosen for this black metal magazine is also a large one however it does not have a section to itself because coverlines and other features crowd the space. This magazine

has also used white most probably to catch the reader’s attention but also because the colour of most of the text on

the front cover is white and any other colour porbably wouldn’t have looked as good; this colour was probably also chosen because it contrasts every colour used on the front

cover especially the black scince it is used the most. The font used for the masthead is much more jagged and inspired by

the music this magazine promotes where as the dubstep magazine’s masthead did not link to its genre.

This magazine uses a skyline which advertises a freebees which could mean that this magazine has been running for years, is made for dedicated readers and fans and has made enough money to afford to give away freebees.Although the price cannot be seen clearly I can tell that the price of this magazine is £5.99 and that the size of the font of he price is very small which indicates that this magazine is expensive enough to have the size of the font very small.There are 6 cover lines used 3 of them are aligned to be slightly slanted I believe that these are the cover lines that stay in this style in each issue whereas the style of the rest of the cover lines change according to the content and the main image of the magazine.

The layout of this magazine is what I would describe as organised chaos the reason being that there is hardly any white space, the magazine is filled with cover lines and features however it is organised because of the fonts resemble each other in style.

Because the magazine is quite chaotic you could link that to the idea that

black metal music is quite chaotic and due to the various angles most of the cover lines are adjusted to it could be

argued that this is quite rebellious because it is not following the

convention of keeping everything straight and ordered.

The colour scheme is made up of red, black, white and grey. The red could represent blood the white (I believe) is just a contrast colour and a colour to tie all the other colours together, the black could represent the darkness and evil that could be argued is in black metal and the grey that is in the picture is added to age the image.