This front cover of Kerrang! magazine promotes their Valentine's Day special issue featuring the band All Time Low. The main elements are presented in a red, white and blue color scheme to match the Valentine's theme. All Time Low is pictured in the center wearing white clothes covered in fake blood. The cover uses excitement and anticipation to draw readers in with promises of exclusive interviews and posters inside. It subverts expectations by combining the love theme with violent imagery like "killer posters" and exposed hearts. The target audience of teenage music fans will recognize the band and genres featured.

1. Following the Z read theory,
This issue is a Valentine’s day
readers will first of all see the
special, which is apparent from
band’s faces, then read across to
the main cover line and mast
see the “Valentine’s issue!” title
head being red and talking about
and finish with the “starring;”
Valentine’s day. The main colour
section. This gives the audience all
scheme is red, white and blue;
the information they need to know
red connotes love, white
to want to buy the magazine. The
connotes purity and blue
“10 killer posters!” title is placed on
connotes calmness. By using
the left, as it it not to do with the
these colours it creates a happy,
Valentine’s theme. The Fall Out Boy
love themed atmosphere.
puff is placed on top of everything
as it is currently an important and
The main image is a studio shot, well desired article.
posed picture of the band All
Time Low dressed in white and The magazine uses personal
covered in fake blood. This fits pronouns to directly address the
with the Valentine’s theme and reader; “invites you”, “Your favourite
also ties in with the cover stars”. The magazine’s name,
story; “your favourite stars open Kerrang!, features an exclamation
their hearts inside!”. The lead mark, which they repeat throughout
singer is holding where his heart the text; “win!”, “first interview!”,
is and punching towards the “posters!”, “inside!” etc. This creates
camera, and is also further excitement and anticipation of the
forward than the rest of his band magazine’s contents.
members, connoting the The front cover also has a semantic
importance of him as the lead field of killing; “killer posters”, “open
singer over the rest of the band. their hearts” and the blood used.
The whole band are placed in This subverts the expectations of a
front of the mast head which Valentine’s day themed issue.
means either the band are The target audience is teenagers who
significant enough to be there, or will recognise the bands and music
that the magazine is recognisable featured. All Time Low are a famous
enough to not need the whole band of this genre so are used for the
mast head on show. special issue. As mainly girls read it
but boys also do, there is a mix of
posers to appeal to everyone.

2. The contents page is clearly laid The language used is informal
out and organised, with the and friendly, like the editor is
articles sectioned into categories having a conversation with the
so the reader can easily find the audience. He speaks casually
part they want. The competition whilst still informing us of what
is the main feature and takes up is in the magazine.
the majority of the contents They use the ’k’ for ‘Kerrang!”
page. throughout the text; “Komics”,
“Komeback”, “K!onfidential” to
The colour scheme used is red,
make these features personal
purple and yellow; the red follows
to the magazine.
the house style of the front cover
and the yellow follows the overall The magazine is divided into
house style of Kerrang! magazine, sections so it is easy to jump to
as they use the colour yellow in the part you want to read. The
every issue. The red was used to “Posters” category emphasises
highlight the Valentine’s day the fact that this issue is a poster
features, as red is stereotypically special.
used to represent love. Saying “Queen legend” and
featuring a picture of Brian May in
The main image is promoting
the editor’s letter shows us the
the magazine’s weekly
magazine producers’ opinion and
competition rather than the
creates a feeling that the readers
band featured on the front
will feel towards him.
cover. The picture is of a man
who conventionally looks like
The target audience will be used
someone who likes rock music
to this form of language and will
(long hair, jeans, band
expect it from Kerrang!. The
merchandise t-shirt) gesturing
competition will directly appeal
to a stack of CDs with an excited
to them as Kerrang!’s view of
expression. He is focusing the
their audience is that they love
audience on what they could
music, so winning CDs is a good
win, and creating excitement by
way to please the target market.
showing it himself. The edited
background adds emphasis to
him as he is in the centre.

3. The main article is made up of 6
pages, with 50% of that being
images of the band. The first
double page spread of the feature
consists of a large image of the
band with a big title above them.
The writing begins on the right
hand side of the page and carries
on over the page.
The image follows the house style
of the front cover as they are
wearing fake blood covered white
clothes. However, in this picture we
can see the guitarist holding a fake
heart, which follows on from the
cover line “Your favourite stars
open their hearts inside”. The
drummer also looks like he is trying
to rip open his chest.
The band follow the stereotyped
conventions of a punk rock band;
they have dyed, styled hair,
piercings, tattoos and jeans. Even
when they are all wearing the same There is a semantic field of love throughout the written article due to it being
thing, we can still clearly see what The main colours used are red a Valentine’s day feature; “And in the UK – where both band and fans have
music genre the band belongs to. and white to follow the house enormous love hearts in their eyes for one another – there is more love in the
The photo is a studio shot, high style of the front cover. air than anywhere else in the world.”
key image where they are all Whereas before the use of the The writer says “All Time Low had us at ‘hello’, we’re fools in love with Alex
looking directly at the camera. As colour red might have Gaskarth like nowhere else” and “… our stolen moments together when they
it’s such a clear, medium shot we connoted love and passion, tour these shores are worth a million years with someone you don’t feel as
can see the expression and using it as fake blood seems much for”, making it very personal to the magazine writers and producers,
emotion in their faces; as they are more like anger and evil. This implying that they love the band as much as the fans do.
looking at the camera it looks like also links in with the title The article talks about how the lead singer and guitarist’s “x rated banter …
they’re looking directly at the which uses the violent word only makes our hearts grow fonder of them”; by juxtaposing these phrases it
reader. “attack”. implies that although we shouldn’t enjoy “x rated banter”, we do and it is
part of the reason why this band is so widely loved.