As part of my Market Research, I
The colour scheme of the front cover has a white or grey background with a red masthead; there are hints of black and some blue. The colour scheme mostly follows the stereotypical punk or rock colour scheme of red white and black. The blue however suggests that this magazine has something different about in an attempt to stand out; this could mean it’s targeted at teenagers or young adults who want to “rebel” which are connotations around the punk rock genre.
There are many photographs on the cover; the main photo is a man with long hair holding a guitar, dressed in black, this is a stereotypical symbol of the rock or metal genre, the fact that he is screaming with his hand reaching out also suggests that he is angry which again is an emotion often connected with punk or metal genres. The other photos are much smaller and the bottom two are of people who feature in smaller parts of the magazine, this differs to my first magazine I analysed “Q” where only the main band featured where photographed on the front cover. This gives the magazine a slightly more personal feel to it as the readers are seeing more of the people they are reading about, rather than just the magazines main story.
The writing style differs massively to Q magazine which was very simplistic and professional with its wording, nothing really contrasts with that as much as the section on the left hand side of the cover with white text on a black background. It reads “FEAR! FURY! HEAVY F**KING METAL!” the use of swearing on the front cover of the magazine yet another sign of rebellion from the magazine as the use of swear language is often seen as disrespectful and not something you word expect to see on a front cover of a music magazine.
The cover itself looks very crowded and looks like the creators of it wanted to try and get as much information onto it as possible. This look makes the magazine look less professional but gives the reader the impression that there’s a lot more going on in this magazine than the others around it on the shelves which might make them want to buy it more. The crowded look also paints a picture about what type of music magazine this is, as the a front cover that is crowded with lots of things could also be thought of as lots of noises colliding on a single page, which would suggest a heavier music genre.
The number and size of photos on the front cover outweigh the amount of text, this hints at a slightly younger audience who stereotypically more interested in looking at pictures than reading longer interviews. The fonts have a much more industrial look to them, with the masthead of the magazine in a font that makes it look broken, the band name “Machine Head” is a font that looks like it has been scratched into the magazine using a knife. Again these are very anti-establishment themes which support the magazine’s target audience, people who listen to punk, rock and metal music.
The colour scheme of this contents page is similar to the front cover, with a white background, with black backgrounds for headings with yellow text. The light blue from the cover and runs along the top of the page as a background for the main heading. The colours of blue and yellow are often thought of as the colours of electricity, this might have been used by the magazine to give it an electric feel and to appeal more to people who like more electric guitar based music.
There are three photographs on the contents page, the main one being a man performing live, the other two simply show a couple of the double page spreads that the magazine contains, photos of live performances are typically found more in the rock genre music magazines.
The writing style of the contents page isn’t quite as “anti-establishment” as the front cover, all the writing for the headings and contents is in capital letters, this is quite simple and would maybe appeal to a slightly younger target audience, there is less information about what each story is about than in Q magazine again hinting that Q magazine has a slightly older target audience than Kerrang!.
The overall look of the contents pages is a lot more organised than the front cover, this might suggest that the whilst the cover is attempting to be this loud, flamboyant and rebellious magazine, inside it reads just like any of the other magazine on the market. It contains the same type of information it is just pitched at a different target audience. The pictures take up most of the page, mainly because this is a contents page and doesn’t have any articles on it, it is only there to inform the reader on what page the stories are on and to look attractive to the reader, therefore it can get away with having most of its space being dedicated to pictures as the writing is not essential.
The colour scheme for the double page spread sees a return to the typical punk rock metal, colour scheme of white, black and red. The text is on a white backgroung but has lots of extracts and sentences that are highlighted in red, the font for the main part of the interview is very simple to make it easy to read, however the other fonts used give the impression that they have been painted onto the page by hand, again this look is designed to represent rebellious ideas of the genre.
The photographs are posed close-ups of the band, in a studio, this conflicts with the stereotypical rock or metal photoshoots which are often simply photos taken from recent live performances. However you can tell by the mise en scene of the bands costume that they are more likely to be a metal or punk band due to the amount of dark clothing they are wearing and the expressions on their faces.
The article in this double page spread of Kerrang! is smaller than the article in Q magazine, which suggests that it is perhaps targeted at a slightly younger audience when compared to Q magazine, this also couples with the picture to text ration, as the pictures are given mush more page on the double page spread than the actual article is given.
Kerrang! magazine is published by the Bauer Media Group who also publishes Q Music magazine, they also have radio stations for both Q and Kerrang! As well as TV channels for both. They also own other magazines on a variety of topics as well as multiple radio stations.
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