This magazine advert promotes the band Kings of Leon and their album "Only By The Night". It uses a sepia-toned montage of the band members' faces overlaid with an eagle. The imagery, green/sepia colour palette, and military-style font create a sense of surveillance, reflecting the album title. Key information like the band name, album title, and song titles are prominently displayed in white text against a black backdrop for clarity. The design guides the eye from the band name to the album title to the song listings in a straightforward, linear fashion.

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4. Colour:
The advert makes use of five, very simple colours. The effect is subtle but clear, and delivers
the most important parts of the advert, front and centre, pulling the eye immediately around
the advert.
It has an overriding green sepia tone washed over the imagery. This gives a feeling of looking
at something through night vision, which matches the album’s Only By The Night title.
The sepia colour tones in with the slightly stronger green lettering on the album title. This
very slight increase in richness of colour on the title ensures the viewer’s eye is drawn to it.
The all-important Kings Of Leon name is in standout white, with royal blue underscore. The
viewer is left in no doubt as to who is putting out this album, which is of course its biggest
selling point. The titles of songs that the buyer may have already heard trailed, are also in
white, although in a much smaller font.
All of this has the effect of the eye traveling from album title straight to band title down to
songs on the album.
The only other colouration is seen in the defining ‘Out Now’ wording where a hot red has
been used to demonstrate some form of urgency or immediacy.
All of this is set on a plain black backdrop which has the effect of framing all of the content
cleanly, and allowing the subtle colours to he highlighted, so although far from bright, they
still shine out. The black adds to the sense of night-time mirroring the Only By The Night
album title, and adds to the sense of night-time surveillance.
This overall subtle use of slightly grungy, faded colour reflects the bands own musical
approach; an indie / rock band with direct lyrics and a style that lets the music speak for
itself.

5. Fonts:
All of the fonts within the advert are upper case, and sans serif, and all lettering is in what
looks like a computer print text, like a military report. It runs throughout all key information
pieces on the advert (with the exception of the trademarked PLAY.com).
The font is angular and appears slightly elongated and with its print-out style, rather than
freehand, it is clear, sharp and direct. The use of upper case and non-bold gives it a strong
and direct feel. Again this feels like someone in reporting on something they are watching
and all of this ties in with the albums Only By The Night title.
There are four font sizes throughout. The band name and the album title are in the same size
font – equal billing, though as mentioned in colouration, the use of white font for the band
title ensures it has the greater dominance over the album title.
The individual song titles are in a significantly smaller font, though again, the use of a white
colour ensures that they still stand out and as the viewer’s eye travels over the album title,
the use of tight leading between these lines pulls the eye from one to the other quickly.
The size of the font for the Out Now, like the individual use of colour, makes it also feel more
standalone – a separate piece of information, important, urgent, but a piece of separate
information from the titles it is surrounded by.
Images:
The imagery in the advert is placed at full width, and with a deeper framing to the bottom
than to the top, placing it almost a third up the height of the page.
The advert uses a very striking and stylised form of imagery, consisting of a four-part
montage of photographic images in a light green sepia tone. It is almost gives the sense of a
photo fit or a set of surveillance images.
Each section features a quarter part of each of the band members’ faces, or heads. So, at the
top left of the overall picture, there is the top left quarter of Caleb Followill’s head, from the
top of his head down to just below his nose. The top right part of the image features the top
right part of his brother Jared’s head.

6. Looking at the upper part of the overall picture, from left to right the noses match up, almost
forming one nose and this sits just above the centre of the overall image, or just above where
the four separate photographic images meet.
This draws the viewer’s eyes to that part of the overall image and immediately up to the single
eyes of these two band members, and the owl’s eyes – more on that later - again aligned
horizontally, but with the eye on the right partly obscured by hair, making the eye of the lead
singer on the left more noticeable and piercing.
The two bottom parts of the image, feature the cheeks down to the necks of the third brother
Nathan and his cousin, Matthew Followill. Unlike in the top half, these two quarters are not
lined up so the two half of each man’s mouth are above and below each other and the chins
are also out of synch, one coming much lower down. And in the left hand side quarter there is
more of Nathan’s mouth featured, than there is of Matthew’s on the right.
All of this cleverly plays with the eye, as you expect things to be symmetrical and even though
they are in some places and obviously aren’t in others, the viewer’s eye still tries to line things
up. It’s only when you concentrate on each part that you see where the things are being
deliberately misaligned.
Then, over all of this is screened the transparent image of an eagle’s face. Its eyes sit just
under the eyes of the men at the top half, and its beak falls into the bottom half, running
transparently over the men’s mouths. The wings frame the heads and necks from behind,
giving the image depth and layers. On the men’s necks are the bird’s neck feathers, again
transparent, giving more of a texture than any clear definition of feathers.
The final overall effect is of four eyes watching out, a strange man-bird creation, with non-
moving closed mouths at the bottom. It’s like the top half of the image is still but active and
the bottom just still. This increases the sense of being watched.
Again the viewer’s eye is drawn to the upper part of the image and advert overall, leading
once again to the band’s name.

7. Use of white space:
There is no obvious use of white space at all in the advert. Instead the only sense of white
comes from within the central photographic montage as within the bottom two quarters the
band members wear white shirts. This is actually white with a sepia wash. The only other use
is with the white bird’s wings behind the men’s heads, but again all this is washed into the
green sepia tint.
The whole advert is set on black, with the band’s name printed in white and the song titles in
a smaller font in white.
Text:
There is little text and it all sits outside of the central photographic image, set on the plain
black background. The text is limited to, in order of top to bottom and hierarchy – Kings of
Leon (band name), Only By The Night (album title), song titles, and Out Now. Under this are
some additional trademark pieces of information such as Play.com. These are set far right and
left.
The important text is centrally aligned throughout the advert. This is as exact as the central
top to bottom dividing line in the quarter divided image, lining up with the exact centre of the
O in the Of in the Kings of Leon at the top of the advert, and with the ‘T’ on the ‘The’ in the
album title, Only By The Night.
With such limited text, which is really functional, there is no room for misinterpretation. Like
the advert overall things are kept clean and simple in the text layout - this is our name, this is
our album, these are our songs, get them now and judge for yourself. Once again you get a
military or ‘report’ sense from the text.

8. In between the wording there is wide spacing which features underscores between each word
which seem to push the spacing wider. The album title makes use of this styling too, but not
the song title line nor the Out Now line. This suggests that the band name and then album
title are most important, as they are same font, same font size, and they match in everything
but colour.
The tracking between each letter in their name and album title is tight and they are set closer
together, almost touching. In a fancier font this could make it hard to read but again the
angular, no nonsense font means the wording remains clear and straightforward.
This also reflects the very direct titling of the songs on the album such has Sex on Fire, Use
Someone and Crawl.
Connotations & Denotations:
There is a hint at someone watching you, and something being reported on that goes on at
night. This links to the song titles with their blatant sexual references - Sex on Fire, Use
Someone and Crawl.
The almost photo fit style of the imagery could be hinting at illegal practices or something
seedy. The four eyes gives the whole thing a bit of a sense of voyeurism.
But it could also be hinting at the fact the band feels watched at all times, that they are being
reported on and observed, that they are being judged for what they do and that this has
become uncomfortable for them – that the bird of prey is all over them.
As seen in the bottom half of the image, they remain tight-lipped, and because no band
member is ever seen as a whole on this advert, their true faces remain obscured. They as
individuals have no separate identity any more, the eyes watching them has made them into
something else – the band with only the band’s identity.
A denotation that can be depicted from the magazine advert is that the imagery’s purpose is
to show case each of the band members to the audience as each section shows the face of
the band members of Kings of Leon.

9. Layout and Design:
The image that can be seen in the background has been split into quarters but within each
quarter images have again been split and merged in order to create an almost paranormal
effect. The text has been placed above and below the image and is on a plain, background,
which means that it is still clear and stands out in its own right in comparison to the imagery.
The layout entices the viewer to start at the top of the advert, where the band’s name is
stated and then work their way down to the image and then the text at the bottom. In other
words the advert has been designed so that it is very linear.
Signification:
The colouration of sepia tone seems to signify the use of night vision, as does the military or
computer style font. Both are significant if you link it to the sense of watching someone ‘Only
By The Night’ to reflect the album title.
The bald headed eagle is the national bird of America, and the band comes from the
southern state of Tennessee, and the town of Nashville. So a transparent use of this bird over
the faces of the band could be branding them and signifying where they are from, who they
are, what is at the root of their music, although their indie rock style is very different to the
Country music Nashville is famous for.
It could also signify a hunter and its prey, and this could be linking back to the sense of
surveillance in the photographic imagery, colour, and use of military style font, and the
album’s title of things taking place ‘only by the night’. Someone is watching you and tracking
you down or watching your behaviour. The piercing eye of the band member in the top right
of the image definitely gives that sense.
This seems also to link to the song titles and content which are quite focused on sex – Sex on
Fire and Use Somebody, and even Crawl.

10. Intertextuality:
By including the fact that the album features the song “Sex on Fire” it can be argued that this
magazine advert induces a certain degree of intertextuality. The song originally came out as a
single and played a major part in the band’s notoriety increasing amongst those who are
audience members of the music genre. The band have used this to their advantage and are
now using it in this magazine to attract the attention of their audience. In other words, the
band have used it as a way of enticing individuals to buy the new album.
House style:
It can be assumed that the band were going for a science fiction tone when they created this
magazine advert. Following on from this it could be said that this sci-fi effect is the house style
of the advert. The ways in which they have followed this house style can be seen through the
way the image has been structured. The mixture of the band members and owl helps to
create this effect. The colouration of the text also adds to this, the green text is the most
obvious example of this as the image has been printed in a green tinge.
The name of the album is “Only By The Night”, which means that through the use of an
animal such as an owl is significant as it would follow a night time theme. This is because owls
are known for being nocturnal.
Brand identity:
There is no doubting, due to the clarity of the font and text, and positioning of the
information that the most important part of this brand is the band’s name – Kings of Leon sits
at the top and in the standout white.
The band’s brand identity tends to see it use its name in capital letters, but they do no use a
consistent font or style.

11. And the band uses very different imagery and styling throughout its digipaks although the
stylised images of their faces is a common theme and is seen on this advert. This different
styling with no brand identity other than their name from one album to the next, may be
why, more even than with other bands their band name has to be so dominant. At a glance
looking at three of their album covers you might not get a sense of them all coming from the
same band. Some have flowery lettering, others look like tattoos.
But bands sell albums more than album titles or song titles so having a clear Kings of Leon
stamp will ensure their faithful fan base can easily support them, and then others may
follow.
But this is very much an advert selling the latest album which has its own clear night-time
brand identity through the font style and sepia colouration, with watching eyes and a sense
of surveillance. All of this backs up the Only By The Night brand identity.

13. Colour:
The advert depicts a menacing scene set in a field, featuring the band in their infamous, horror-
style masks. The colour is washed out and faded, but the sky area bleeds upwards from a lighter
sky blue to a dark, ominous, stormy blue shade. This colour is deeper on the top two corners of the
advert, essentially framing the image.
The red colouration of the band’s title Slipknot and the supporting logo “S” above that, is in a
slightly washed out tone, and the title is outlined in white. As it sits over the darkening area of the
sky this ensures that it clearly stands out, with the white outline giving it greater definition. This
use of red makes the band’s title the most prominent part of the whole image, almost branding it
into the viewer’s eye.
A narrow band of white, depicted by a strip of low cloud backlit on the horizon, tracks behind the
heads of the band members, just above the centre horizontal line of the advert. This use of white
in the imagery serves the purpose of giving clearer definition to the nine band members, almost
‘cutting them out’ from the rest of the image.
The whole mid-section below this white band of the advert is given a yellow hue, using imagery of
long grasses, dotted with flashes of red from the band’s sleeves cuffs in the same colour as the
band’s title higher up the page. This mirroring of the red pull’s the viewer’s eye from the mid-
section back up to the band’s title, establishing its importance in selling the product.
As the eye travels down the advert the colour darkens to black. The lower part of the advert offers
the most detailed pieces of information – the band’s album title and tour dates – and so this dark
backdrop with the use of white text over the top is very effective in making the information clear
and easy to read.

14. Fonts:
Slipknot, the band’s title, is in its uniquely drawn font. With its ragged edges it gives the impression
of barbed wire, fitting in with the heavy metal style of music the band writes and performs. The
style uses capital and lower case letters, with a capital at each end on the ‘S’ and the ‘T’ of the
band’s name, with a capital ‘K’ in the centre of the word. This makes the S, K and T standout more
as in Slipknot.
The use of red in this font, also gives the sense of blood, and this is further given with art worked
dripping effects on all of the font’s descenders on the letter ‘p’ for example and on the downward
support in the letter ‘T’. The font also has extra-long downward supports, so the ‘i’ is lengthened
and stretched, as is the ‘l’ and the ‘T’.
All other text within the advert uses a simple serif font, written in all capital letters, and in white,
apart from the ticket line details at the very bottom, because this line also includes a website
address and people could mistakenly type in all capitals if it was portrayed on the advert in that
way.
The font is surprisingly classic, very different from the style of the band and its aggressive and
chaotic music. This makes it clear and easy to read.
Slipknot - the band’s title – is in the largest font on the advert, followed by the album title – ‘ALL
HOPE IS GONE’. After this in size order comes ‘IN STORES NOW’. Then ‘THE NEW ALBUM’ and
‘SLIPKNOT LIVE’ are in the same sized font.
This simple size adjustment around the page – largest font top and smallest font bottom - makes
the viewer’s eye pick up the most important information and creates a hierarchy of what is
important to notice – first the band’s title, then its album name and so on.
In a much smaller font, towards the bottom of the advert come the tour dates and details on how
to buy tickets. This suggests that the advert’s main aim is to firstly to sell the album, to loyal
Slipknot fans, rather than the tour, which is important enough to promote, but it is clearly the
secondary thing to focus on.

15. This may be because the tours are guaranteed to sell for an established popular live band, and
there are other more successful means of doing this than via advert – such as via fan websites –
whereas the album sales need to be pushed as its all new material and a bit more of an unknown
quantity for the public.
In the ticket details line of text the telephone number is in a bigger font to make it stand out
clearly. It is bigger than the website address suggesting at this time in 2008 telephone ticket sales
were still more popular than online sales.
Images:
Slipknot is known as an aggressive-style heavy metal band, with chaotic guitar and percussion
sounds. The nine-member band is infamous for all wearing grotesque horror masks, and for the
real faces of the band members never being seen, even during live performances. The overall effect
is demonic and set very firmly in the horror genre.
With the band taking centre stage across the mid-section of the advert, this imagery is seen very
clearly, and it continues with a transparent pentagon appearing in the sky, along with other
scratched effect shapes just appearing to the eye.
The stormy sky gives a sense of menace and dark things to come, as the band peer through long
grasses in a field like a line of approaching zombies, the storm at their back. All of this imagery is
made even more surreal by being in a half photographic and half painted effect.
On the left hand side one band member outstretches their hand behind the grasses, framed by a
red cuff the hand is given clearer definition and this gives the viewer the sense of movement and
of the band moving towards them.

16. Use of white space:
There is little use of white space in this advert. As it is using the artwork from the album the
imagery is more important than the placement of white spacing. Instead white and red lettering
pulls the eye up and down and across the page, with the font sizes further pushing the viewer’s
eye to the next important piece of information
The only use of ‘white space’ as such in this advert featuring the album artwork is in a strip across
the mid-section, just above the central horizontal line and it uses the imagery of white clouds to
provide the white space.
Text:
The text is centred throughout the whole advert and is clear and simple, stating only the bare
essentials – the band’s name, that they have new album, the title of that, that it is on sale and
tour dates and details.
It does not include any titles of the individual songs from the album, suing the space instead for
tour dates.
The band’s title takes the most prominent place, roughly a third down from the top edge of the
advert, making it extremely dominant and immediately pulling the eye there.
The album title is force justified, running the whole width of the advert, this and the fact it is in
the second biggest font size, makes it the second most dominant piece of text on the page.
The bottom third of the page is very text heavy with most of the information and details sitting
there. The tour dates run in two columns at the bottom of the advert, held up by a single line of
text with a ticket line telephone number and website address.

17. Connotations & Denotations:
Slipknot are from Iowa in the mid-west of America, which is known for its crops and agricultural
land that goes on for miles and miles. The wide open field with long grasses could be suggesting
where the band came from and its roots.
This album - All Hope Is Gone - was also recorded in Iowa and launched an updated sound for
Slipknot, who had already recorded three albums and were at risk of being seen as creating one
sound only.
The effect in the imagery of the band emerging from the long grasses, walking forward, with a
‘new look’ for their updated sound, but under their clear Slipknot banner and logo could all signify
a new dawn for the band, but still the same enough for their faithful fan base.
A denotation that can be depicted from the magazine advert would be that the band are just
walking through a field in order for the image to be taken as this is what can be seen from and
audience member’s perspective.
Layout & design:
The overall design of the advert or the album cover it depicts is very true to the band’s styling and
identity. It could just as easily be and advert for a horror movie and not just because of the band’s
masks. It has the feel of an advert for a film like Saw or a zombie movie, with its menacing sky,
sense of something sinister emerging from where it was hidden in the long grasses.
The mixed styling of the photographic and painted imagery adds to this sense of it being filmatic
and dramatic.
The advert for this 2008 All Hope is Gone album puts this band imagery literally right at the centre.
The nine members are placed in a relatively straight line, double layered to give the image
perspective, across the whole horizontal centre line. But this is not where the eye first goes to.
The band’s title hovers overhead (in the menacing storm-filled sky), roughly a third down from the
top edge of the advert, making it very dominant and immediately pulling the eye there, which is
further helped by it being in a red colour. Then the eye drops to the band line-up and downwards
to the next line of text, down to the album title and so on.

18. Overall the advert’s layout uses the artwork of the band’s name and the imagery of the nine
member line up as the central focus, but keeps the business details to the lower third of the page,
set on a darker background.
Font sizing, with the most important pieces of information in a larger font and reducing as the
importance of the information reduces, and the hierarchy of the placement of this information on
the page is all quite logical, with only one line of text in a smaller size font sitting above larger text.
So text size reduces top to bottom.
Text is centred, with only one line force justified – the album title – and the tour dates running in
two columns due to the amount of text needing to be covered in a clear, readable way. In this line
we see the tracking or the space between the letters in the words and the space between the
words is stretched wider to make the All Hope Is Gone title fit the full width. It also make the title
stand out a bit more.
The following line – In Stores Now – goes back to normal tracking and is centred without any
forced justification.
Signification:
All Hope Is Gone was their first studio album for some time and it featured a slightly new style of
music for Slipknot in answer to critics who had been saying that after three albums and with such
a strong sound and style, they could get a bit old and had nowhere left to go.
To match the updated sound they took the opportunity to freshen up their styling and image with
the launch of this album, and the cover artwork featured in the advert was used to reveal their all-
new masks, horror as before only more gruesome.
Again, the suggestion of the band members walking out of the long grasses and moving forward,
with a ‘new look’ under the Slipknot banner could signify a new start for the band, and something
new on this album for their fans.
The album ended up going to the top of the heavy metal charts so it all seemed to work and 8
million people viewed the previewed advert and album cover artwork on the first day of its
release.

19. After releasing and touring with their previous three albums many members of the band were
struggling with drug and alcohol addiction and relationship problems, so this new dawn, restart
could also signify how there was a fresh start for them in their personal lives too.
The title would appear to contradict that approach but as band member Paul Taylor was quoted in
a popular heavy metal blog: “To me, All Hope Is Gone is a very positive thing to say because hope
means expectations, and when you give up expectation, you just embrace what’s going to happen.
“There’s nothing better. You’re never going to be let down. I think hope is the death of dreams,
honestly, because what if your dreams come true in a completely different way and they don’t live
up to your hopes? Then, all of a sudden, your heart’s broken for no damn reason.”
Intertextuality:
A clear example of intertextuality can be seen through the inclusion of the masks that the band
are known for wearing. They are a part of the band’s iconography and feature in most if not
everything the band produces, from merchandise to performances.
House style:
There are no obvious factors that suggest that the band has followed a particular house style. The
only arguably house style like factor that can be mentioned is the way in which the band have kept
to using the same font for all of the information in the lower third of the advert and that it is also
the same colour, white.

20. Brand identity:
In this advert there is no doubting the striking brand identity of this band and their product. They
are selling a strong and brutal image of a heavy metal band which are harsh, loud and chaotic. You
expect something powerful and other worldly.
The band’s name says everything, a Slipknot used to throttle people. The band’s barbed and blood
red font used on its name, and the symbolic S – for Satan? - Logo appearing almost in flames and
with drips of blood also reflects this demonic identity. A logo easily transferred to a tattoo on
many a fan’s arm.
Their gruesome masks make their image everything – you are in no doubt once you’ve seen them
who they are - but it never reveals the true identity of the band members and so the nine-
member line up have easily changed without the band looking too different, and staying familiar
to their fans.
It suggests that the music is the most important part of the band – not how they really look or
who the individuals are - even though their image gets branded on the eye.