AS MEDIA STUDIES

CASE STUDY

ANALYSIS OF CONTENT AND DESIGN OF A MUSIC MAGAZINE

By Punit Patel

Analysis of the Front Cover

The photo on the front cover is a medium shot. The portrait shot is of Eminem based in the middle, taking up most of the page. The image is important because it is of a musician that many readers can relate to. Eminem is an iconic symbol as the photo represents his image. The shot looks like it is taken when Eminem was in a live concert, this represents him as an authentic musician.  The image attracts the public because it is very large and is of a known famous rapper. We know what is inside the magazine because on the ‘ears’ of the magazine, it reveals popular topics inside. The information is arranged in a disorganised fashion, Eminem’s photo is overlapped by his name and a title of his article. Then some other article titles are displayed in the ears. It has been arranged like this so it can attract people and also let them know what is in the magazines. Black, White and red colours have been used. They have been used as they are dark colours as the colour scheme relates to Eminem’s clothing. These  colours conflict against the conventional colours of the magazine as the title and the subheading are in white and bright red which are bright colours.  Eminem is an iconic symbol as the photo represents his image. Although the barcode is not a sign, it is displayed so that information like number of buyers can be monitored and recorded buy the publishers. Eminem’s photo is an iconic symbol of Rap. appeals to the public as some people listen to his music. The Masthead (NME Logo) is in white. It is significant because it is bright and so it stands out from the dark background. The Masthead is in “Arial” and the subheadings are in “Sans Serif”. The bold font for the masthead is chosen because it is attractive and eye catching. And the subheadings are quite plain so it can easily be read. The barcode has the website address which is www.nme.com. The website is cross media promoting the NME radio, magazine and television. The price of the magazine is £2.30. The price is stated above the masthead, top left and on the barcode. It is predominantly for males with a cross over of females. The language is quite informal so people with high to mid classes can follow(A,B,C1). The producers are IPC media. IPC media cross owns and publishes other magazines such as ‘look’, ‘tv times’ and ‘nuts’.

Contents Page

The denotation of this page is: there is a small picture of Eminem, an image of a singer, Yannis, and a picture of a band. It has been laid out in columns. The connotations’ are; the 3 columns show the magazine is neat and organised, each part in the contents page has an image to represent it unlike standard content pages. The use of different fonts and sizes differentiate the mentioned articles to make each individual and important. Also if all the article summaries were in one font, the readers wouldn’t be interested in the contents page and therefore not interested in the magazine, Most pictures are the same size, but some are bigger than others, this may be because the bigger pictures represent more interesting or larger stories and the smaller pictures represent quick reviews and stories/articles.

 Arial is used the titles as it is a bold font. Images of bands and artists are on the contents page because they relate to the articles, this is ideal as the readers don’t want to waste time reading each article to see what each one is about. The images represent the bands but in different ways, for instants, Page 40 it represented by a photo of RPA and the united nations of sound all looking directly at the camera lens to give an effect as if they were looking at the audience, as if they were trying to connect to them. The language in the contents page is quite basic so it is easily read quickly. For example; “T in the park”, it is basic and is detailed. The Contents page has no connotation in it as all the images of the bands and artists. The contents page it simply tells the reader what is coming in the magazine. This is efficient as the readers are rockers and informal young people who are the main target audience. The contents page only uses black and white, white for the background and black for the text, the black is a good colour for text as it is bold and eye-catching, the white background compliments it to make it ‘stick out’ more.

Double-Page Spread

The plan of the double page spread shows pictures in definite angles and the article is laid out into eight different columns. Moreover, approximately one quarter of the page on the right side of the page is taken up by a picture featuring the “Bombay Bicycle Club”. Pull quotes next to the pictures adds an emphasis for younger readers as they would read these quotes first then they would read the article fully as they may be interested and may want to know more about the article itself. The article name and pictures connote that the “Bombay Bicycle Club” are performing for the love of music rather than the fame and the money which is what most of today’s artists do. There are many columns in the article because the article is portraying the front cover of NME, making the article appear to have a great amount of information. There is also footer at the bottom of the page to show that the article is consistent of NME magazine. The colours of the magazine are very colourful (orange and white) this is a total opposite colour scheme to the rest of the magazine, which shows that the article is most likely to be different than the rest of the magazine, it represents a change.