Task 1: Preliminary Magazine Research

Task 1: Preliminary Magazine Research

Magazine 1: Empire  

Type:

‘Empire’ magazine is specialist magazines because it’s articles mainly focus on movies.

Target Audience:

At a glance this magazine doesn’t look like a film magazine, it looks like a men’s glossy magazine. This edition of Empire magazine looks as though it is targeted at the male gender. Megan Fox is posing on the front very seductively, not wearing a lot. I don’t think this appeals to women as much as it does to men. The second biggest writing on the cover is the “ Megan Fox”, this obviously trying to draw in the male attention. But will also appeal to other audiences because she is a big, well-known actress.

Writing:

The writing on the magazine Is very bold and it stands out, especially the Masthead and the "Megan Fox"

Use of Images: 
There aren't many images on the front cover, because it's mainly promoting the actor Megan Fox

Design and Layout: 
The magazine doesn't have many colours on the cover because, this way the audience would focus more on the large print of Megan Fox. Megan Fox is the main focus of the cover, that is why she is on one side and the cover lines are on the other.

Magazine 2: NME Music magazine

Magazine 2: NME

If seen for the first time, it is apparent that this is a music magazine and what specific type of music it focuses on. NME magazine is one of the most popular music magazines in the UK today, targeting those that have interests in the “Indie” music scene. NME magazine is owned and published by IPEC media, which is the UK’s leading magazine publisher. We can see clearly from first glance at the magazine’s front cover that it is indeed a music magazine, as we can see cover lines giving information on the articles inside the magazine to do with artists and focusing on the band Muse as it features heavily on the cover as the main image that covers the entire magazine and the main title is the band name. As this band is already well known and successful the imagery covers the masthead slightly, this is allowed as the band are seen to be important and do not need the name of the magazine to sell but the main image. With cover lines such as “Festival Survey” and bands such as Wild Beasts, Yeah Yeahs, and much more that this magazine has different genres, but not going totally off the scale with a certain type of genre as “Pop”.

From the front cover it is obvious that this is a music magazine targeted at the age group of 16 years of age to early people in their early twenties. The magazine is popular with the younger audience as this genre of music and the youth of the bands is more appealing to them rather than people in their 30’s and above, and generally the younger audience have more disposable income and therefore spend it on weekly/monthly music magazines for updates on their favorite bands and gigs or as it highlights at the top of the magazine “Festivals”, which attract the younger audience.

In terms of the front cover, the main image is entitled to be the band Muse. In addressing the audience the image has got quite a serious tone to it as the band members look at the camera and straight at the readers. We tend to focus on the lead singer as he is placed at the front and center of the magazine thus attracting the reader even if not a fan of the magazine but of the band. In the background of the band, it seems they are in “recording studio” or a room that has their instruments etc. that shows they are a successful band and that they are always at work with music. The masthead is in the common place of the NME magazine but in this case with such a famous band the masthead is slightly covered by one of the band members, this shows that the band are the very important in this issue, and that they don’t need to show the full masthead as the magazine already has a huge amount of loyal fans you would buy the magazine despite who is on the front cover. The cover line along with the main image says “If everyone slag’s us off, then fine!” showing the reader that they do have haters but they have still became successful enough to have sell out arena tours and headline at big band festivals, this attracts the reader to find out more about the band.

NME magazine tend to keep to the same colors of Red and white, as it is familiar to the reader and has now just become a conventional feature. Everything is written in quite a basic font, most of the cover lines are written in block capitals but are of smaller font to the main cover line linked with the main image and magazine special. The layout is set like most magazines with the Main image covering the first layer then the cover lines surrounding it and the masthead above.

The Buzzword on the cover is “vive the resistance“, which allows the reader to see that the band are much more exciting and ready to promote their new album even when they know they have haters. There are not many other short and snappy buzz words which are more common on other magazines, I feel NME have not used buzz words such as “New” and “exclusive”, as such language might not attract the edgy/indie sort of reader.