1. Magazine Analysis
These 5 magazine covers have an awful lot in common. First of all, they all have a colour theme of
black, white and red, and 3 of them also have yellow. Also, all the covers have a photo of one of the
bands/artists that are featured in the magazine. These photos are all mainly medium long shots of
the featured bands/artists too. The photos all have a purpose, and reflect the genre of the music the
magazine is based on. For example on the Q magazine, the Kings of Leon are all smiling, and looking
friendly, which clearly implies that their music isn’t aggressive of violent, that it is a little calmer and
happy. As well as the photos and colours, the titles are all bold; in an extravagant font (and colour
too). The title isn’t the only text on the covers though; all of the covers have small articles about
other featured stories/interviews within.
These magazines obviously have different target audiences, most do. For example, the target
audience for the Q magazine would be younger to middle aged people who are interested in Rock
(calm). This is similar for the Kerrangmagazine, however in my opinion I would think that the Kerrang
magazine is targeted for people who again are classed as young to middle aged, and are fond of
Rock, but a little bit heavier. The target audience is different for the Mixmag magazine, the colour
scheme is similar, but used in different proportions, and on the front is a girl, who is portrayed to
look pretty (she is a femme fatal, which interests the Male Gaze), not intimidating, which infers that
this magazine is not Rock based, and that it is calmer; because of the young girl on the front, it
represents the magazine’s audience is younger people, and the majority of that young audience
being female. The Mojo magazine is again different, as it is targeted at an older audience, mainly
between middle aged to ‘old’, and predominantly males. This is clear because the two men on the
cover are fairly old, male and don’t look either intimidating, or appealing, which infers that they are
a Rock band, but not heavy, and that the magazine includes mainly this genre. Last of all, the NME
magazine is targeted at again young to middle aged people, perhaps of middle class with a male

2. audience, and calm Rock genre because most of the people on the photo are male (there is one
female), and they don’t look aggressive, so it won’t be heavy metal.
These covers do also differentiate. For example, the Mixmag and Kerrang magazines use different
colour schemes, and completely different photos. The Mixmag magazine has a woman posing, in
comparison to the Kerrang magazine, the photo is of 3 males looking scruffy with blood on their
face. The Mixmag has red, white and black coloured text/background, whereas Kerrang has red,
white, black and yellow! NME and Q magazine’s photos both contain people who are smiling and
looking happy, unlike the Mojo magazine with a photo of the Rolling Stones that are looking
plain/dull and simply staring. Also the Rolling Stones haven’t got any colour on them, unlike the
bands on NME and Q. Some magazines don’t have as much detail on the front cover as others, for
example: there is a massive difference between the amount of text and photos/pictures on the
cover of Mojo and Mixmag. Mixmag just has a few small articles of text on it, whereas Mojo has
plenty of articles, with more text, and varied sizes, which are generally larger that the text on
Mixmag. Last of all, the font of the text for the title ‘Kerrang’ is bold, with lots of cracks within it
which represent danger – so does the yellow, whereas the font of the text on NME’s title is white,
which has connotations of innocence, and it is plain.