Front Covers Evaluation

When looking at all three of the front covers I have analysed. There are immediately many differences and similarities that are shown. I have analysed the music magazines of Billboard, Vibe and NME because this way it will help me understand more about how to make my own music magazine.

The instant factor I saw when looking at each of the front covers is the main image. On all three of the magazines I analysed, each of them contained one big image that fills up the whole of the front cover. Two out of the three main images was an image of the artist’s head and every image the mode of address was them looking at the camera. This has been done because it creates more effect and drama and also engages the reader more. In addition to this, all the images is of a famous music artist so the audience can relate further to the magazine which would persuade more people to buy it especially if they were interested in that specific music artist. In this case the, for my own music magazine I will use a big image of a famous music artist from the pop industry (as that is the genre of music magazine I will be creating) and make the mode of address looking at the camera because as we have seen this is the norm of music magazines and this makes the magazine look professional and very effective when it is on the shop shelves.
 

Another piece of information I have gathered from my format research on front covers is the mastheads. All three of the front covers have the masthead across the top of the page. Both Billboard and Vibe had the masthead across the whole top of the page however; NME had the masthead still at the top but squashed in the corner of the page. I have found out from my research that the norms of mastheads on music magazines is to do what Billboard and Vibe has done and to display the masthead across the whole top of the page. NME magazine have done this because they want to create diversity and stand out from the rest. Therefore, when I make my own magazine I am not sure whether I should convey the norms of music magazine mastheads and have it maybe down the side of the page or at the bottom as this will create variety and will make my magazine stand out or stick to the norms to make it look like a traditional music magazine. The problem with conveying the norms is that it is very risky and must be implemented in the right way because if it is not then the idea of being different will backfire and will have the reverse effect that I wanted. In this case then, when I make my magazine I will experiment with different masthead positions to see what makes my magazine most effective and what makes it stand out the best.
 

When looking at the text of these three front covers, the same thing is used to help create a brand for the magazine. This aspect is the colour. Every magazine has a distinctive house style to it which helps massively create a brand for their own magazine. The colour scheme of Billboard’s front cover is pink, yellow and white, a more female dominating house style. The colour scheme of Vibe’s front cover is grey, black and red which is a more male dominating house style and the colour scheme for NME magazine is red and white colour scheme which can relate to both males and females. I think the key to choosing the right colour scheme for the front page of the magazine is to know who the audience of the magazine are. The target audience for my magazine would more likely to be males in their teens who are into pop music, so in this case I need to adopt the idea and style of Vibe magazine’s house style because they have a similar target audience to me.

Another factor of information which I retrieved from my format research is the elements of the barcode. On both Vibe magazine and NME magazine a barcode is present and on both of the magazines it is placed at the bottom of the page. Vibe’s is placed in the bottom left corner and NME’s is placed in the bottom right corner, both of the barcodes are vertically presented instead of horizontally. This will probably be because by having them vertically it takes up less of the page but also is more appealing to the eye. The reason why Vibe and NME have the barcode on different sides is because that is how it fits into the layout of the magazine. Therefore, when I come to producing my magazine I will place the barcode down the side in the bottom corner but experiment whether to have it on the left or right depending on where the text and images are.

In conclusion, by completing this format research on music magazine front covers, I have gained a lot of information about how I should make my own music magazine. I now know what the norms of music front covers are and what I can do to defy the norms. This format research is very helpful for my task.