Analysing the Contents Page of Three Existing Rock Magazines

Analysing the Contents Page of Three Existing Rock Magazines

 In the previous essay I analysed the front pages of three different leading magazines in the genre of rock music. I will now analyse three of their contents pages in order to understand the way that the magazines use continuity in order to keep the interest of the audience and appeal to them completely.

The first contents page I will analyse is from Kerrang! Magazine which is aimed at a young audience between ages 15 and 35, of any gender, sexuality, ethnicity etc, and it includes a broader range of rock sub-genres than the second and third of the magazines I have chosen.

Form: The layout of the page reflects the rebellious and messy connotations that comes with the genres represented within the magazine in that boxes and images are overlapping, however, the layout is easy to understand with the images in one column for about ¾ of it and main contents list in its own column, in sections that can be easily comprehended. This makes it easy for the audience to navigate to the part of the magazine that interests them the most, whether that’s a particular band or whatever. Also, as part of the layout, a small section written by an editor of the magazine, James, sits in the bottom left corner of the page, which is a feature that is continued through each issue with the same editor, and this contains a small picture of the editor along with the short paragraph on the contents and their opinion of the issue. This is a good feature to have in a popular magazine like Kerrang! as it gives the reader an insight into who the editor is and how they feel about the contents. Finally, in the bottom right hand corner of the page is an advertisement, which shows, in order to make a profit and cover all costs of producing the magazine, the institution, Bauer Media, uses advertising within their publications, eg Kerrang! magazine to make money.

This page features a main image with smaller images, and the main images is of a female band member which could represent Laura Mulvey’s theory about the ‘Male Gaze’ and how images of females are used to entice heterosexual males. However, the image also attracts the female audience because they may look up to and respect this woman and thus will be reading this magazine for the band/band member featured. The pose in which the model band member is holding also reflects the rebellious and free connotations of the genre by not standing still and a casual pose, but trying to get the attention of the reader. The smaller images tie-in with the main image in that they all represent what is obviously a main focus for this issue and that is pop-punk music, a sub-genre of rock music, and also, the stories represented by the smaller images are assigned a star with a page number in in order for the reader to easily find the page the whole article on each.  All of the images follow the colour palette which keeps the page from looking overcrowded and unappealing.

The colour palette used on this page continues to reflect the connotations of the genre with bright and primary colours such as blue, yellow, black, white and red. This contrasts the Classic Rock and Metal Hammer who both just use red, black and white, and thus makes that magazine stand out from its competitors and attract a younger audience due to the more variety in colour. Pink is also used seemingly to represent the pop-punk genre, and possibly more subtly, the increasingly popular female-based pop-punk bands and music, for example We Are The In Crowd, a band of four males and a female vocalist, Tay Jardine, the main feature of the magazine.

The typography for headings is a variation of the Kerrang! masthead font, which is displayed on this page as well as on the cover for continuity in design, and it looks like it represents a corroded rock, using more visual metaphor and unique design to appeal to a younger audience and make it clear exactly what the magazine is about, just through the use of typography. There are two other fonts used, which are more standard, and these make the information clear and easy to read, instead of the page being overwhelmed by fancy typography, and this makes the page look professional and it keeps the audience in the correct age range, ie if fancy fonts were used for all typography, the page may look tacky and aimed at a younger audience than the 15-35 range targeted here. The colours used for each specific style of font makes it clear where different sections are. Whilst using black for the main information against a white background, and using the brighter colours against a darker background, eg the yellow subtitles on the black background and the yellow and white title on a blue background, it makes each feature of the layout easy to find and it doesn’t put the reader off by using colours that may be hard to read, especially against light values.

 

The use of a female as the main image for this page, without the rest of her band, supports Laura Mulvey's gender theory about the male gaze when she that females are used “As erotic objects of desire for the characters within the story, and as erotic objects of desire for the spectator.” 

The second contents page I will analyse comes from an October 2009 issue of Metal Hammer magazine, a heavy metal orientated publication aimed at an audience of mainly heterosexual males, aged between 20-35.

 The layout of this page is very similar to the layout of the Kerrang! one, almost just mirrored, with the contents in two columns below the title, with advertisements underneath, a column of images next to this and then the editors box next to this. This shows that the most orderly and generic way to structure a contents page in a magazine of this genre is to have two or three main columns, depending on how much information you want to be on the page, and this helps me when deciding the layout for my own print work. Again, there is a lot of overlapping, which could connote the stereotypical opinion of rock music’s rebellious and messy nature. The editor’s box seems to be used for the same purpose as the Kerrang! one, to allow the reader an insight into the editor’s opinion of the magazine’s content and also the building of trust between these two subjects.

 There is a lack of a single main image, instead there are at least two images that are particularly large and therefore the reader focuses on these first, which could demonstrate that the magazine has many equally important articles as opposed to one main feature and lots of other less important articles. The images used are mainly of males who perform metal music, with one female image which could satisfy the theory of Laura Mulvey’s male gaze, where the image is used to attract the attention of heterosexual males, who are typically the target audience for the magazine. Moreover, the pose the female is in connotes an effort to sexually entice this audience, furthering the relation to the male gaze theory. The images of males seem to be typical images from the genre, with either a serious facial expression or an action shot, which accommodates the stereotype of all rock artists being angry and scary men. This also appeals to the target audience of heterosexual males because it shows people who they may look up to or relate to.

 The colour scheme used on this page conforms to the common convention of white, black and red in rock magazines. These colours have certain connotations which are stereotypically expressed in rock music eg blood, anger and death. The use of white allows the use of inversion, which could represent the bold statement that the genre of rock makes, in its rebellious stereotype.

 Typography is used in a similar way on this page as in the Kerrang! contents page, the same font is used for the title and sub-titles, with a clearer one used for the main bodies of text. The font used for the heading looks gothic and this accommodates the stereotype about the people who listen to rock music being “emo” or “goth”. The clearer font for the main bodies of text used isn’t much clearer than the headings, which keeps the gothic theme running throughout the page, but also makes the page look professional due to the continuation of the idea and not jumping through different and clashing fonts that would ruin the overall look of the page. There are a couple of different fonts used, mainly for the advertising in the bottom left corner, but even these different fonts still run with the gothic theme and add to the continuation of it.  

The final magazine’s contents page I will analyse is from Classic Rock magazine and it is from issue 81. The target audience for this magazine is heterosexual males aged 30+.

 The layout of this page is very different from the former pages I have analysed, in that although there seems to be a very loose use of two columns and the amount of information on the page seems like very little in comparison. There are four images, a caption for each and a short list of contents. This short list just informs the reader of the main features of the magazine and not the entire list of contents. This could have been used because the target audience is of mature men who buy the magazine due to a genuine interest about all of rock. This could mean that even without all of the contents mention, they will go through the whole magazine, reading all articles, instead of picking out only the ones which seem most interesting. The lack of editor’s box on his page could be due to it being situated elsewhere, but it could just not be included because the editors don’t feel it important in a magazine aimed at an older audience, because they may not care or just not find it as interesting as the actual information that the magazine gives.

 The images used are all of bands that are well known within the target audience and are ranged between full group shots and medium group shots; so that sufficient detail is given of each band and they are easily identifiable to the reader. They are arranged to take up most of the room on the page, possibly due to the most important part of the magazine being the bands themselves, and also the overlapping seems to be a convention of rock magazines, continuing the rebellious and messy stereotype.  

 The colour scheme of the page follows the white, black and red shown in the previous two magazines; however the colours in the images do not conform to this palette. This could further the theme of the bands being the most important part of the magazine and therefore it doesn’t matter to the reader or the editors what exactly the bands are wearing. It shows that the magazine is about celebrating the music and the bands, not the small and irrelevant details like colour.

 The typography is in three different fonts, the headings are in the same font as the “Rock” in the “Classic Rock” branded logo, the subheadings are in a similar, less rounded font and the main body text is in an even clearer, simple font. All of these fonts work together to create a look of simplicity that appeals to the target audience and furthers the idea of the music and their creators being more important than the small details.

 The language uses pun and metaphor to add a humour to the articles and this may appeal to the target audience because their humour may not be as clear as for the younger generation.