Analysis of 3 magazines

Today we have lots of music magazines which connect with different genres of music. The different magazines have different cover stars and house styles however they often have the same technical features such as a masthead, lead articles and main sells. However do we really know what attracts us to buy one magazine instead of another? All magazines have the feature articles and photographs but they are differently designed. They have different articles inside and different editorial content.

My task for Project Three is to compare 3 magazine covers using technical media language. The covers which I have selected are ‘The Source’, ‘MixMag’ and ‘Rolling Stone’. All three magazines have a masthead which is a name of the magazine. The masthead is produced in a recognisable font. For example ‘Mixmag’, ‘Rolling Stone’ and ‘The Source’ have the same type and colour of the letter which is red with white highlight. The masthead is important because it is instantly recognisable to the target audience. The masthead builds upon the magazine’s brand identity.

Magazines represent different types and genres of music. For example ‘Rolling Stone’ represents the Rock& Roll lifestyle. ‘The Source’ represents Hip-Hop, Rap and ‘Mixmag’ represent all types of club and dance music. Every Magazine has one or two types of fonts on the front cover to keep the balance between colours and fonts. Most magazines aimed at the 19+ age range have a limited colour palette. Magazines aimed at younger readers tend to be very bright, with lots of colours to attract the audience’s attention. Also all magazines have a lure which are gifts inside the magazine. Lures are often written on the cover page just above the Masthead, or for example a free CD would be positioned in the left third of the page to attract the buyer’s attention when the magazine in positioned on the newsagent’s shelf. The copy of ‘Mixmag’ I chose to analyse has a lure which is a mix club CD. Again this lure will appeal directly to the target audience of young club-goers and hopefully motivate them to buy the magazine.

Every magazine has a lead article and lead image which attract the target audience to buy these magazines. The lead image will be of an artist that appeals to the target audience. My magazines have articles about ‘Snoop Dog Smoking Christmas’ that is the lead article for the ‘Rolling Stone’, ‘The Source’ have lead article about ‘Hip-Hop Rocks-N.E.R.D and Gnarls Barkley’. Different lead article have the ‘MixMag’ which have article about ‘The Future Issue’ that article tell you everything you need to know about dance. Again the lead article reflects the values and interests of the target audience. The person on the front cover is the main attraction of buying the magazine.

Every magazine has main sells which promote new music albums or singles to attract people to buy them. Main Sells advertise the contents of the magazine. Magazines try to put as many new songs as possible on the main sells to promote them but every magazine have different type of music so the songs will be different e.g. ‘The Source’ have 8 of main sells in Hip-Hop type e.g. ‘Crooked I’ or ‘the Roots’, but different magazine will have different main sells e.g. ‘MixMag’ have ‘The Ipods of decks’ or ‘Underage Raving’ that are only two out of 13 mains sells which were offered by this magazine. Also ‘Rolling Stone’ offered some main sells e.g. ’How the Super-Rich Are Screwing America’ or ‘My Chemical Romance-Tenacious D’ but that is just few of main sells which have been offered by ‘Rolling Stone’. Two of three magazines have a barcode on front page of the magazine.

All magazines attract different types of music but the front covers of the magazines are connected by different fonts or pictures on front cover which attract different types of the music e.g. Three artist on front page of ‘The Source’ magazine are connected with hip-hop or rap by the clothes or jewellery which they wear. Also on front of the ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine there is a picture of ‘Snoop Dog’ who wears the Santa Claus clothes and smoke the candy, that mean the ‘Rolling Stone’ want to attract readers with funny pictures and well known celebrities.