Genre Comparison

1. GENRE COMPARISON
COVER PAGE
To further my knowledge
of conventions of the indie
pop genre, I am comparing
the style of this to pop
magazines.

2. Pop
Magazine
Indie Pop
Magazine

3. COMPARISON
I have chosen to compare the pop magazine “We Heart Pop” with the indie pop magazine “DIY”.
As clearly shown the pop magazine is far more hectic and busy looking, using a lot of different
font, colour and text sizes to attract their audiences. The indie magazine on the other hand has
a much simpler layout using two different fonts and the one colour of white for all text. This
creates a simplistic and sleek design which would be more appealing to their audiences. The
pop magazine used at least four different images of different artists and items alone on the
cover page, whereas the indie magazine has only one photo of the main band; however both
magazines have used photos where the artist is directly facing the camera/audience showing
the importance of direct address. This continues to show how the indie magazine is keeping to
a more simplistic design, which they have followed through the whole of the cover page. Both
magazines have used a bright colour to attract audiences, blue for indie and pink for pop,
showing how important having a pop of colour is on the cover page. However, the indie
magazine has used this colour a lot more minimally, whereas the pop magazine have used their
brightest colour excessively across the cover page. The pop magazine has a lot of tag lines
highlighting the range and contents to the audience in a great amount of detail, whereas the
indie magazine has used shorter minimal tag lines. Both magazine have their short mastheads
placed in the left hand corner, showing the importance of a having a short but catchy title.
Overall the indie magazine has used a far more simple, direct and sleek design, making the
magazine look very professional. They have used a bright colour and direct address in order to
attract audiences to the magazine and help the magazine to look interesting on a store shelf.
From this I have learnt that indie pop magazines will lean towards a far less busy and chaotic
style, preferring instead to be a little more sophisticated and professional.