The document summarizes how a student's music magazine project conforms to and challenges conventions of existing metal music magazines. It analyzes the technical, written and symbolic codes used in the student's magazine covers, contents page, and double page article spread compared to established magazines like Kerrang! and Metal Hammer. The student aims to attract a loyal metal audience while portraying a more intellectual style through greater use of text over images.

1. My Music Magazine

2. ● conforms to the stereotype of metal genre magazines, by representing itself as a strictly
male product
● I used McMahon and Quinn’s Symbolic Code to decide on what colours to use for my
magazine
● I wanted the general feel of the magazine to be quite dark and eerie because it is typical of
the metal genre music magazine style, and I wanted mine to be recognised as a metal
magazine at first glance
● main theme colour is red because it symbolises danger and masculinity, which is what the
metal genre stands for
My Magazine (SONAR) Kerrang!
How Does My Magazine Use Existing Media
Products?

3. ● For my cover photo, I did an outdoor photoshoot
with a local hardcore band
● I did lots of research on existing products in the
market and determined that my photo would
have to be rather dirty looking, dark, and
unposed
● shadows fall on the model’s faces so that they
look threatening and serious, whilst having
enough light on the faces to show the facial
expressions
● photo had to be taken at an eye-line shot,
because the audience need to feel equal to the
bands on the covers of these metal magazines
How Does My Magazine Use Existing Media
Products?

4. ● From my research of existing metal music magazines, I found that all of them used images
to accompany their articles and the majority of the photos were at a slant or had a bold
border around it
● From this information, I made the decision to do the same to the photos that would
accompany my double page spread.
How Does My Magazine Use Existing Media
Products?

5. ● I wanted to keep the general feel and theme of it
similar to existing magazines of the same genre
because it needed to attract the same audience
and the existing metal magazines on the market
already attract a large number of metal fans.
● I decided not to change or develop many aspects
of the typical metal music magazine.
● However, there were some things that I decided to
do a little differently. For example, many metal
magazines tend to have extremely crowded
covers, filled with tilted photos and bold subtitles,
but my magazine was aimed towards getting
publicity towards new, local bands - so I tried to
keep my cover as simple as possible in order to
attract as much attention as possible to the band
on the cover.
How Does My Music Magazine Develop or Challenge
Existing Media Products?

6. ● Many metal music magazines use over-exaggeration and short, simplistic sentences.
● Along with the fact that their articles tend to be picture-heavy and they use large fonts, I
thought that metal music magazines tended to assume a young, un-intelligent audience
● From my audience research, I found that 90% of the metal fans were either in college or
university and 10% were working a full-time job
● contradicts what existing metal music magazines, so I decided to make my magazine more
intellectual in terms of wording, and made the text smaller to make intelligent or older fans
feel less patronised by the media
How Does My Music Magazine Develop or Challenge
Existing Media Products?

7. Front Cover Comparisons

8. Technical Code
● camera angles on both magazines are eye-line matches, which make the readers feel
equal to the band members, which attracts metal fans to this type of magazine
● both main members of the bands (vocalists) are juxtaposed on top of the magazine title, to
make them seem important and to make the band stand out rather than the brand
● both have adverts on the covers to attract a larger audience
● both have smaller cut-outs of images overlapping the larger cover photo, which attracts
further audience as they are advertising other things such as other bands and festivals
● Kerrang! has used shadows on the main band member and not on the other two which
suggests that they are not as mysterious or interesting, which is transferring the attention
from the whole band to just one member, whilst with SONAR I have tried to ensure that I
made everyone involved in the magazine equal, between band members and between the
audience as well
Front Cover Comparisons

9. Front Cover Comparisons
Written Code
● both the existing magazine and my magazine have large titles that are in plain, block
colours, which would grab the attention of someone browsing a magazine rack, but do not
take the attention off of the band on the cover
● both magazines use large fonts for the band names on the cover, to attract attention to
them, even if a photo of the band is not featured on the cover
● both magazines have a certain font(s) as part of the house style and use it/them all over the
cover and throughout the magazine to secure a familiar style that the readers will like and
recognise
● black and white lettering contrasts with the full, colourful backgrounds of each magazine
which attracts the attention of the readers without taking too much of the attention away
from the main cover photo

10. Front Cover Comparisons
Symbolic Code
● both magazines use red as the main colour theme. Red suggests danger, anger, rage,
courage, etc - connotations associated with masculinity, which would attract the mainly
male target audience
● the facial expressions and body language of all the band members on each magazine look
quite threatening and powerful - again, associated with masculinity, which would attract a
male audience of young men who aspire to be like the members
● Comparing my cover (photo and editing) to Kerrang!’s cover, it is quite clear that my
magazine is not meant to be flashy and expensive-looking, but a magazine that helps
young male fans relate to the members

11. Contents Page Comparisons

12. Technical Code
● both contents pages feature images
● however, my contents page has photos of bands blended into the background, so that they
leave enough room for the page to be text-heavy, to attract the more intelligent audience
that my audience research showed
● the images on the contents page of Metal Hammer are all photoshoot images with the
bands, so they are all objective, but the images on my contents page were both taken from
the crowd at gigs, which makes them subjective, giving the reader a sense of belonging and
involvement in the metal music scene
Contents Page Comparisons

13. Contents Page Comparisons
Written Code
● like the front cover, both magazines use a certain font(s) that is part of the house style
● both contents pages address the audience directly, and informally, e.g in Metal Hammer -
‘Download Preview - You’ve got your ticket, now you just need to plan your weekend.’
● both magazines have an editors letter, which makes the whole magazine much more
personal and friendly towards the readers
● both contents pages have the title of the magazine at the top, to emphasise the magazine
and to reinforce the house style

14. Contents Page Comparisons
Symbolic Code
● both magazines use red again somewhere on the page, to symbolise
masculinity and to keep the house style and colour scheme running
throughout the magazine
● from looking at existing metal magazines, I found that the vast majority of
them used red as their colour scheme for this same reason
● Metal Hammer features a few women in the pictures on the contents page.
One female is in one of the featuring bands, but the other 6 are used to
advertise merchandise and as ‘props’ for one of the bands, portrayed as sex
objects or trophies

15. Double Page Spread Comparisons

16. Double Page Spread Comparisons
Technical Code
● Metal Hammer has used a huge photo as part of their double page spread, which takes up
a whole page
● I feel that existing metal magazines were too picture-heavy, used over-sized fonts and
worded their articles so simply that they seemed almost patronising
● for this reason, I wanted to make my magazine seem more intellectual by making it much
more text-heavy, which is why I used up as much of my two pages as possible for text
● images in Metal Hammer are also all posed, professional and objective, which suggest it is
an upmarket magazine that only feature the biggest bands
● my magazine is targeted towards getting publicity to up-and-coming bands, so the
subjective images from inside the crowd fit perfectly

17. Double Page Spread Comparisons
Written Code
● I chose Metal Hammer’s double page spread to compare with
my metal music magazine because, in terms of font size and
the amount written, it is surprisingly different to typical
magazines of the same genre
● the other page is filled with small font text in columns - shows
that Metal Hammer assume they have an older, more intelligent
audience than other metal music magazines, for example Big
Cheese

18. Double Page Spread Comparisons
Symbolic Code
● use of blood spatters on a black background on both articles suggests
violence, danger and anger, which attracts the male target audience of
metal magazines
● both magazines continue the red colour scheme over the double page
spread, continuing to symbolise danger and rage to keep the male
readers interested