1. Media Analysis
The masthead of this article is in a larger
font sizethan the rest of the text on the
magazine as when it’s stacked in shops
only the top third is visible so it must
stand out against other magazines and
appeal to consumers of this specific genre
and even draw the interest of the second
hand audience. Also, the font used for the
masthead has a cracked effect which
reflects the house styleof the magazine
and therefore the magazine’s readers are
more likely to identify with this and
inherently are more likely to buy the
magazine. Furthermoreit has used a
variation of a serif font for the headline
which creates a more punk appearance
and tone to the magazine cover as it
appears to correlate with the mood of the
music and it almost mocks the
conventional serif font by making it jagged. This relates to whatpeople relate to
punk; spikey hair and studded jackets and aggressivemusic. Theshopper notices this
and concludes that this magazine is more likely to have better content than another
magazine which, for example has used a smaller sans serif font as it looks less
professional. In contrast, mostof the headline is overlapped by an image of the
featuring band. This reflects that the magazineis well known and easily identified by
consumers, thereforeit doesn’thave to be as easily read as other magazines that are
not as well established.
The overall colour schemeused on the magazine cover is typical of its genre as red
connotes to anger and rage. These connotations reflect the mood of the music that
this magazinefocuses on which suggests that this is popular with the consistent
buyers of the magazine.
All of these aspects combined create an effect which is typical of the house
style of this magazine. This connotes that the magazine doesn’thave to try and
challenge stereotypes of the genre to interest customers through its alternative
aspects which shows how successfulthemagazineis.
2. Photographs correspond with individual
articles. These are used to advertise the big
feature articles and interviews that only this
issue of the magazine has. In this way the
contents page is advertising its unique selling
points
Regular and feature articles are separately
shown in the contents. This is so that the
readers are drawn in by the design features for
the feature articles on the front cover and so
that they can easily find the corresponding
stories
Photographs also have captions that inform the
reader of what page they can be found on
which makes it much easier for the reader to
find articles that feature the bands shown in the
photos
Contents PageThe contents page of ‘The Big Cheese’ is
ordered chronologically for the ease of the
reader
The cover story is clearly labelled in the
contents so that readers that are drawn in by
the front cover story can find it easily
3. This double page spread is
very effective because of
the minimalism. For
example only red, black
and white have been used
and there’s not large
blocks of text. This is a
more appealing layout
because it’s so visual,
rather than being full of
large blocks of text which
is unattractive and looks
boring to the reader at
first glance.
Furthermore, all the
photos are in black and
white which emphasizes the minimalistic colour scheme, both of these techniques create a spacious effect on the
pages.
The large photo which takes up the whole page also gives the effect that there’s less text than there actually is which,
although people want to read about musicians, is desirable
