1. 1. Kerrang!MagazineAnalysis
2. 2. Front CoverBanner-drawing attention to thefeatured posters and Warped TourMast Head, typically placed behindthe heads of the people on themain image.Main image featuring the morecommonly known artistsPuff-pointing out that they have alot of options so people check tosee if there are any they areinterested inMain Sell Line-Illustrates what themain feature of the magazine is, inthis case its the top 100 rock songsPull lines which make you want toread on Ive done stupid thingsThe Used saved my life
3. 3. Front Cover Kerrang! use a very standard basis and popular conventions on its cover. Ona great majority of their magazines they have the heads of the peopleon the main image over the mast head as opposed to perhapsunderneath. They have also placed the main sell line over what would bethe lower body of the artists which implies that the main sell line is relatedto those particular artists. This would draw the reader to pick up themagazine if they saw their favourite artist. After considering other coversproduced by Kerrang! it appears that this is a favourable layout for themalthough it has not been used on all of their magazines. Unusually on this particular cover the pull lines are small and tucked to theside so they dont really scream at the reader or draw any attention tothemselves. This could be because this is a special edition issue andseems to be more focused on the main article which is The Rock 100.However they are still effective as the reader will still want to know whythe used saved [his] life and why the haters entertain him etc. Kerrang! seem to use limited cover lines and the left third tends to be usedup by other things. For example on this particular cover it is taken up bythe main sell line and image and the bottom and the top by pull lines.While on other covers the left third is used up by previews of the postersfeatured inside.
4. 4. Front Cover Both of these covers show a similar layout to the first one, with themain sell line over the artists on the front. However the blue oneprobably follows the pattern more but the green on is morerecent. The colour scheme of the top one fits very well with the subjects onthe front because the person on the left is from the band GreenDay which fits well with the green back ground but also that is thecolour of their latest album so it is a sort of subliminal promotionand people will automatically link the two. However this still linkswith both of them because the article the sell line is referring to isabout the two bands (Green Day and All Time Low) playing ashow together. As I previously mentioned, the more recent magazine Uses the leftthird to display the posters inside rather than cover lines or leavingit pretty much blank. This allows them to use the space moreefficiently because now they have more banner space. There is one strict consistency amongst all of the magazines howeverand that is the banner across the top and bottom of the cover.While they dont advertise the same things, the older magazinesseem to be showing the posters but then in the newer ones theychanged it to be on the left third. Personally I prefer the posterpreviews in the banner as they make the cover look squashedwhen they are down the side but this does give them a little extraspace to promote concerts etc. in the banner.
5. 5. Contents Page This issue has placed the contents in a column down the right sideand has used the majority of the page for promoting acompetition. This could have been purposely done as it is on theside that you see first as you open the page. This means that it iseasier for the reader to find the page they want without havingto fully open the magazine. Minimal detail has been used on the actual contents so it fitscompactly into the right hand side of the page. Not much detailwould be needed as it would simply clutter up the contents andmake it harder for the reader to find what they are looking for.Also most of the main articles have been made apparent on thecover and since the reader has already picked up the magazinethey dont need further enticing to look at the magazine. The big space used for promoting the competition ensures that youcant miss it and Slipknot fans will recognise the bandimmediately and possibly take an interest. Most of theirmagazines feature a competition on the contents page whichincreases the chance of people paying attention to it becausethe contents page is very often the first page people turn to andpay attention to. For example if they featured a competition ona page midway through the magazine the reader may just skippast it without even noticing it. They also include a note from the editor at the bottom of the page.Its not very long but it just gives the reader a small update forexample in this one he is informing the reader that the usualeditor is away and he will be taking over for the week. Byincluding this the editor is making the magazine feel morepersonal because the editor himself is addressing the reader.
6. 6. Contents Page This is an example of another contents page byKerrang! This one is in the same layout as the otherfor example there is a competition which is themain feature of the page, the contents itself is onthe right and there is a note from the editor at thebottom. For the competition section they use bright coloursand fonts that are not often taken seriously (comicsans) because this makes it obviously informalwhich is important because the target audience ofthe magazine would be younger people-teenagersand possibly young adults. This is another example but from a more recent issue.Here they have changed the layout, putting theeditors message on the right and the contents inthe bottom half of the page. Also, they have takenout the competition and replaced it with an imagefrom one of the pages. Another difference between the two is that they seemto have included more detail in the contents. Mostof the page titles have a short caption after themwhereas in the older ones they only includecaptions in about half of them.
7. 7. Double Page Spread In both of these spreads they have immediately relatedthe text to the photo which makes it more interestingto look at and more intriguing. In the first one theheading is Smashing It! with a photo of the singerpunching what appears to be glass. In the secondthey have Bloody Hell with a photo of the bandcovered in blood. They also have a fluent colour scheme to match, forexample the band in the top spread mostly centretheir image around the colour black so the wholepage is black with a bit of red included to makethings like subheadings stand out. The second spreadis relating to blood so all of the writing is on a redbackground. Despite them being double page spreads neither ofthem actually have a large amount of writing onthem. Most of the space on the pages is taken upby the main image of the band/ person and theheading which leaves only about 2/3s of a page leftfor text. This makes the page look full while it doesnthave an eye-watering amount of text. Another common factor between the two spreads is thatthey both contain quotes from the article madelarger so they stand out. This will be inevitably whatthe reader reads first and they, like the pull lines onthe cover, draw the reader in to keep them wantingto read on. For example I was 12 hours away fromlosing my leg and Ill never be satisfied. They areintriguing quotes and make you want to know whyhe nearly lost his leg and why hell never be satisfied.