Comparing Two Music Magazines Covers -ESSAY

There are many different music magazines available based on the different music genres. The two magazine covers I will be comparing are ‘Total Guitar’ and ‘Terrorizer’ Both these magazines fit into the rock music genre, however rock as many sub genres which these two magazines do not match. For example ‘Total guitar’ aims at tame and general rock fans, whilst ‘Terrorizer’ falls into the heavy metal genera. This means that these two covers will use slightly different techniques to advertise to their chosen target audience.

                             The first magazine I am going to analyse is ‘Total guitar.’ The title, firstly, is a bold, plainly coloured title which could reflect the seriousness of the magazine, meaning they may take their music seriously. The title follows a font scheme that is used in all issues. This may be to make it easy for a regular reader to find this specific magazine. The main feature of this issue is a Green Day interview. This is made clear by the fact that the green day logo is the first thing people will see, even before the name of the magazine, by placing it in the centre of the page in bright, bold lettering. The band is associated with bright pink colours and the fact that the magazine have used this colour to highlight other features on the front cover could indicate that the band are so important and successful that they are taking over the magazine and destroying their serious look. At the top of the magazine, other bands are mentioned and this could make the magazine appeal to a wider audience and in the long run make more profit. Also a free gift is advertised, which could encourage someone to buy the magazine even more. 

                          With the ‘Terrorizer’ magazine, the name of the magazine in a font that looks like it is dripping, which could be associated with blood and appeal to the target audience. The main picture is of a member of a band, who is wearing dark colours and is showing an angry facial expression which again could advertise the magazine to the target audience. There is little writing on the sides of the magazines, and this may be to show the background more clearly. The background is a gloomy sky affect, linking into the mood and tone set by other features of the cover. The colour of the writing is a white/grey colour, looking like a stone, which reflects the tone of the music, which is a hard rock. Two bars are seen going across the top and bottom of the page, which is seen on news channels showing breaking news, so this could show that their news is update and is a must to know and extremely important which again makes the reader one step closer to purchasing it.

                           From looking at these magazines, I have gained some ideas on how to layout my music magazine. For example I know to stick to a particular colour and font scheme which may reflect the genre of music the magazine is based on. I also know to advertise the main feature more than focusing on making the title clear, as I have learnt that people are attracted the magazine based on the main picture/title. An idea that I saw on the ‘Total Guitar’ magazine was to use a certain type of language technique, such as using pro nouns like ‘your’ to relate and connect with the potential reader.