Questionnaire Results

Which genres of rock music do you find most appealing?

My results show that a large part of my target audience prefer the indie genre of rock music so I know that the double page spread featured on the inside of the magazine will be aimed towards the indie genre of music.

Which magazine cover do you prefer?

The majority of the people I questioned preferred the NME special edition and many of the reasons for this were that it “looked in your face” and “seemed like a special edition”. So when creating my cover I am going to make it looked special and different from the rest of my competitors.

Which rock artist is most inspirational to you?

The results for this question came out all equal so I cannot make an overall involvement/conclusion on this specific question to involve it in my magazine.

Which type of story do you prefer?

I realised that most of my audience prefer to read humorous stories rather than serious ones so when I write my article I will focus it around being on the humorous side.

What are your favourite rock bands past and present?

The pie chart shows that the most of the target audience I questioned preferred the band The Happy Mondays to any other. So when I go to create my magazine, I know that I am going to include The Happy Mondays as my main story to attract potential buyers.

What gender would you like to see on the cover of a rock magazine?

After asking my target audience on who they’d like to see on a magazine front cover, the majority wanted to see a male image in the front. So this is what I am going to when I create the final magazine.

Ancillary Project


Front Cover
























Contents Page

Production Research – Inner Pages

Contents

1. How is the information organised – what are the different categories?

The information arranged on the contents page is done using one main category which is bands. It’s called the band index and helps the reader find the intended band/singer they want to read upon easier. The bands are listed in alphabetical order and the pages they can be found are listed next to this. Compared with other magazines, NME has kept its contents basic but included an inside story to show it gets straight into it. To find stories about general things in music, they can be found on the right hand side of the page in categories. Examples of these categories are News, Radar, Reviews, Features and Live!

2. How many images are there on the page? Are they varied in terms of size, subject and composition – if so, how?

There is just the one image on the contents page but this is used in a small story that is featured. It is a rather large image that the reader firsts notices when they turn to this particular page. The picture has been taken at a worms eye view and it makes the image look very important as it seems to be looking down on you. There are many graphics on the page that hold text for example in the weak fallow area you can find an offer to subscribe to the magazine used in form of a graphic and also in the terminal area there is a graphic that holds text to an inside story.

3. Highlight any design principles at play (e.g. principle of thirds, balance, the Guttenberg diagram, active space, unity rhythm and emphasis).

In this contents page there are many design principles that are being used to great effect. Balance is used with a white background and black backings on each of the headings. Principle of thirds is used well in the contents page of this particular magazine. The left hand column as well as the right is packed with stories and information with different categories to show this. The middle third has an image to grab the reader’s attention and it also shoes a good active space. The text is focused on the image as it is written around it to symbolise the image is iconic. We can also see that the image is a Guttenberg diagram, with it going from the primary optical area to the terminal optical area. Unity has been used with consistent and continuous text as well as the colour scheme and graphics. The use of space is consistent and looks symmetrical on either size of the image. This makes the image look more presentable on the page. The magazine emphasises certain vocabulary through text, size and font. This easily makes certain aspects of the magazine stand out which is the sole purpose of the editor to attract the target audience to buy the magazine.


4. What are the various typefaces and font sizes? How does type face help to contribute to the house style of the magazine?

Text size and font helps the reader establish which text stands out and has for importance than others. For example headings are in a bigger text and are usually bolder then the “normal text” used in stories and that’s found on the majority of the magazine. We know that if a text is in a big size, it has a higher importance on the page as it jumps out on the reader. It’s the first thing we notice when we look at the page. The use of various typefaces/font sizes has an influential effect on how the target audience approaches the text. If they were skim reading, they would look at all the bigger words/fonts and see which story catches there eye.

Double Page Spread

1. How does the headline grab the reader’s attention? Consider size and type of font as well as the actual language.

The headline grabs the reader’s attention with the size and style of the font, it is in a large font size and the font is sans serif which we are all familiar with. It is in white as well fitting in with the colour scheme. The language is basic and with the band name being big to the target audience, the reader will know what the story is about as well as noticing it easily because of font size and type of font.

2. Analyse each image in turn, starting with the largest main image.
a) What are the connotations of each image? Who is being represented and in what way?
b) How are the images integrated with the text around them?

a) The main image takes up half of the double page spread which shows the importance of the picture. As it’s on the left and covers the primary optical area, we notice it straight away so they make it appealing by the type of picture used. All the people in the image have a direct mode of address and the colours in the image fit in with the colour scheme of the magazine.
b) The image uses unity to help the magazine look more presentable and because of this helps the story sell. The images with text are in agreement and they don’t look like they are just randomly places but look correct with one and other. The use of 3 columns looks better to read then many columns as it doesn’t look like there’s too much writing but it all looks like it flows into a smooth read. As there is only one image, it looks better and the layout is more eye-catching because the size of the image gives out the message that it has importance.

3. Highlight any design principles at play (e.g. principle of thirds, balance, the Guttenberg diagram, active space, unity rhythm and emphasis).

In the double page spread I am analysing, there are many design principles that are used to make the story it is covering look effective. Balance is used with an image on the left hand side accompanied by the story on the right making it easier to know what is going on. The text is focused on the image as it is written on it to show what the picture is representing. We can also see that the image is a Guttenberg diagram, with it going from the primary optical area to the terminal optical area on the left hand page. Unity has been used as the text colour, size and font is continuous throughout the magazine. They have used space well and made it use rhythm and unity with it constructed to suit the target audience and how they like to read a magazine. This makes the image look more presentable on the page and because of this the text/story looks easier to read. The magazine emphasises layout and principles at play with house style and text sizes, font and colour. This makes the story look better on the page and this use of layout in certain magazines is more readable.

4. What are the various typefaces and font sizes? How does type face help to contribute to the house style of the magazine?

The various typefaces in this double page are used to establish the importance of the text (headings, sub headings and text). We know this because the larger the text size and bigger the font, the more importance the text has. So headings have a bigger text size than the text found in the article. If the font size increases in the article, it probably symbolises that the certain sentence has a meaning to understand to what the story about. In this story, this is shown with “I’ve been shot for the way I look before. It’s no big thing for me”. Reading this informs us that the article will have a few lines based upon this sentence. The house style to the magazine is helped by this because the rest of the stories found in the magazine will be similar and house the same layouts and colour schemes as well as typefaces.

Front Cover Essay


The magazine I am going to analyse is NME. The magazine uses specific connotations in various ways to make it clear to its intended target audience that it’s aiming its product at. The audience that the product is aimed at is a niche market and because the music market is so big, they use connotations such as a colour scheme, fonts, graphics etc to show the audience who they are aiming there product at. In this case, NME uses various stories that can be found on the inside. This is displayed along the left hand third of the cover, when magazines are stacked in the shops, the leave the left hand third visible before putting other magazines on top. So NME has put most of the information on this side. But most importantly they place the master head here. Because we read from right to left, when we look at a magazine we automatically look at the top left hand corner hence the masthead being here. The magazines slogan (new musical express) has been used in a small font which fits in with the rest of the colour scheme. The word express in the slogan translates to “on the go” so the slogan means music on the go. With this slogan used, we can now understand that one sector of the niche target audience is people who are travelling and want to find the perfect magazine. The style that the magazine is presented is effective by the use of certain elements. The central image is a main part of trying to sell the magazine. Direct mode of address is used well in conjunction with this as he makes the reader feel he is looking at them. The use of underlining certain texts and some text in bold shows which bits are more important and noticeable when the target audience first notices it. For example, the colour text is used for a few reasons, white is known to be a rich colour and it stands out easily on darker backgrounds. The main image is off the artist Morrissey and the description of the image reads “Bigmouth Strikes Again”. NME has used this description to target a specific audience. The description is a play on words as it is an old smith’s song that Morrissey used to sing so using this will target a specific niche audience that NME is trying to aim the magazine yet. The house style uses a colour scheme of red white and black. These are colours that are basic but when used together are very effective and can stand out in a shops shelf against any other. The font is consistent throughout and text size varies over which stories are more significant to others e.g. the main central image had text that is large and bold to make the reader view this but the stories discovered along the left hand third that the reader see’s first on a shelf uses pictures accompanied by graphics. The writing for these graphics has a different colour background for the text to make it stand out. If the reader isn’t interested in these stories, the magazine has used a text graphic along the bottom to show in brief terms what else can be found in the magazine, it doesn’t follow the magazines colour scheme/house style but as the magazines only doesn’t apply this once; it makes it stand out from the rest of the page. We find out that certain connation’s target different areas of the niche music market but the stories displayed on the cover. The three cover lines show three different types of music audiences and the wording to display them isn’t as obvious but also targets the specific audience it is aiming to. The 3 music artists cover lines aim at there intended audience by using phrases from what they’ve said or what’s coming up for them in terms of music. So the 4 graphics with typefaces and wording have targeted 4 types of music genre. Other bands are included at the bottom so the reader can easily view what’s on the inside by just looking at the cover. To use up space but make it look effective, they have placed a red circle in the top right hand area. This graphic is trying to represent a sticker to add a little bit of effect and use the space in the top right third and it reveals a story that can be found on the inside. So overall, NME is targeting a niche audience but is trying to make it as big as possible. Specific connotations make this possible and these are images, graphics, house styles, texts and many more. They use these to the highest effect and in my opinion pull it off very well and that’s why the magazine is a success.

Annotated Magazine Cover