Magazine Research
I have decided to produce a music magazine cover, double page spread and contents page. I want to base my magazine on the indie/rock/electro music that is vast spreading. I would like to research magazines such as Q, NME and Uncut and one different magazine to help me to create my professional look.
This music magazine (XXX) cover suggests a hip/hop or rap theme. The use of the rapper ‘Lil Wayne’ helps to suggest this genre. The representation of the image allows us to believe it is a hip/hop magazine. This is because of stereotypical views of rappers. For instance the tattoos of the rapper and the mean facial expression could represent aggression which links with the hard expression of hip/hop. The ideology of this music magazine links in with the stereotypical brash and violent portrayal of hip/hop artists. Society’s attitudes, have allowed this ideology to change over time, but it is different in different cultures. What the readers of XXX think helps to keep consuming as the rap culture obviously is wide spread and vast. The design of this magazine is really quite simple. The main image is strong enough to carry the page. The lack of text highlights the main text in blue and black on the main image. The layout is quite spread across the page, which draws you to the main image
NME music magazine is an Indie magazine. It is quite different to the XXX magazine, as its design is packed and full of colour and information. The typeface is bold and doesn’t even have to be seen, it’s that noticeable. This catches the eye of buyers. The representation of the indie theme is ‘cool music’ ‘cool clothes’ and ‘cool behaviour’. This magazine highlights the positive representation of indie behaviour and highlights the cool side of the music. It represents teens, male and female, and of all ages. It highlights their behaviour and the stereotype of the music magazine allows for its huge audience because they can relate to the music and artists within the NME magazine. The Gossip are upcoming icons in the indie world and buy using Beth Ditto and her controversial ways, we can see that NME have obviously chosen them to be on the front cover to help with income and buyers from their audience. The ideology of this magazine is that it is ok for women to talk about sex and skins. The institution has changed over the years as has representation and ideology of women. The music mag is bright and the fonts used help to grab your attention. The page is packed but helps clearly to show the ideas and representation of the magazine. I have noticed repetition throughout, and keeping to conventions. Many of the indie/rock magazines use strong contrasting colors such as NME which uses black, red and white. This could symbolize a variety in the indie music or could represent the good and bad views/attitudes on the music- the drugs, sex, rock and roll and the music that is produced by the artists.
The contents pages of a music magazine are important because it tells you the information about what will be inside. It needs a lot of text, clearly portrayed and also it needs to be bright to attract viewers. These contents pages have small images to help make the page more interesting. Its representation and ideology is the same as the front cover and the theme should carry on through the magazine.