DECONSTRUCTION OF A MUSIC

MAGAZINE

Masthead - A successful music magazine has the masthead of the magazine portrayed as a logo by using iconic texts and colour schemes that stick in the mind and are easily recognisable to the public.

COMMON CONVENTIONS

‘Kerrang’ uses text that looks like it’s smashed to give it a rugged feel as the music involved in these magazines are quite heavy genres.

‘Q’ is an iconic image as it’s a short title and the coloured background makes it easier for the public to remember.

Barcode – One of the common conventions used for magazines, a barcode on the front cover informs the audience general information such as the price and issue release date.

Main image – Most music magazines have a main image of a singer or band which takes up the majority of the page. This makes it the main focal point of the magazine.

COMMON CONVENTIONS

By us ing photographic sk i l l s you can create an atmosphere and emot ion in a photo which can best represent a magazine’s genre.

These 4 images are of the same person al l portrayed in d iff erent ways. To g ive d iff erent fee ls .

MAIN IMAGE DECONSTRUCTION

The red and black colours showlust and give the picture a sexualfeel. Her facial expressions portray her to be threatening and fierce. This kind of picture would be on a male magazine as it contorts the true female image.

The clothes worn here arenatural and colourful giving the model a friendly natural feel. The proxemics of her facial expressions show her to be warm and welcoming. You’d see this type of photo on a positive teenage magazine.

This type of photo would be usedon the front of a fashion magazine. The model is slim and her outfit accentuates her figure showing the stereotypical ‘skinny’ desirable figure. This sells clothing more to the target audience.

The use of shadows in this picture creates a stand off-ish feel. The way she blends into the background makes her look mysterious. Her stance shows her to be threatening and stating authority; shown by her having her hand up.

Plug – Advertisement to encourage customers to buy the product, this could be a free supplement or off er which is enclosed. Eg, ‘FREE TOPSHOP VOUCHER’, ’10 HUGE POSTERS INCLUDED!’.

COMMON CONVENTIONS

Colour schemes are very important in magazines, using the right colour scheme to represent the genre and make the magazine stand out from others helps a magazine to sell.

I f you used bland dull colours such as grey and black and browns, it wouldn’t look eff ective and make the target audience want to read it.

An eff ective thing to do is use colours that contrast eff ectively on the background and masthead as it wil l make the title stand out.

Use colours that are bright and vibrant to make the magazine look positive as music is something that makes you feel good, but contrasted with a dark colour such as black to create contrast.

I f I was to create a heavy metal genre magazine, I would use darker colours l ike black and red as the music is more hard-core and these colours represent that.

COMMON CONVENTIONS - COLOUR

Once you have attracted the audience with a good, attractive front cover using colours, you have to address the audience with things such as visual and written language.

The language I would use is informal to incise the young target audience with slang and various idiolect of the younger generation.

The audience for a specifi c genre music magazine would be a niche audience because it ’s aimed at a specifi c thing, to make it a mass audience the magazine would have to be more general .

The magazine I wi l l create wi l l be a niche magazine as i t wi l l be a music magazine for a certain genre.

AUDIENCE

There are diff erent groups of people in diff erent social classes media pieces are aimed at.

The ABCDE method spl i ts people into diff erent social classes and media texts are aimed at these specifi c groups.

A – highly paid professionals ie. Doctors, Lawyers B – people in medium professions, highly paid ie. Teachers C1 – (white col lar workers) ie. Nurses C2 – Practical professions (blue col lar workers) ie. electricians, plumbers D – unski l led workers ie factory workers E – Students, Unemployed, Pensioners.

My magazine will be aimed at mostly group E as I plan to make a magazine teenagers would be interested in.

TARGET AUDIENCE