Analysis of Music Magazine Key conventions

Music Magazine conventions

I have searched online for a range of indie rock magazines and found none which specifically address the single genre of indie rock, although it is contained within magazines such as NME and SPIN as a sub genre and simply feature within these magazines. So I found these magazines which have indie rock main features and see how they compare to analyse.

 As we can see the main part of the cover is the image of the band as this is the most important feature and draws most the attention in of the indie rock genre as it is usually a sub genre recognition is important.

The image for Q Magazine takes up the entire page and over laps the mast head for style and due to the fact it is more important , but the mast head has a bold red background behind it to still allow it to stand out upon the image. The other two do not have overlapping pictures but that could change in the next issue. The mast head is still the largest piece of text on the page and is one of the first things you notice when viewing the cover, but the main feature title is also equally important on this cover to draw the audience into the band as the title 'Mumford and sons' spans across the page with a white block back ground with black bold text to allow the text to again stand out against the image.

There is a text colour scheme of white black and red , all the text is black while having white and red back grounds standing out following a rule of three. The read is used for headers such as SPIN and features to keep consistency between cover headings and in magazine features. This colour scheme and red background behind headers will be consistent through out the whole magazines.

Front Cover

The title of the magazine is very clearly shown in the top left hand corner where it is for almost every issue. Its white font and red background are continuously the same except from special addition issues of the magazine. This issue of Q is a special issue. The gold circle with ‘the 300^th issue’ written inside it makes it look more stylish as well as the fact that gold connotes being the best. 

The short phrase underneath the very large ’Q’ is intended to ‘sum-up’ the magazine’s image and stick in the readers mind. Adele takes up 2/3 of the cover. Her forehead and hair slightly cover the masthead which creates an almost 3D effect. Also her purple outfit, nails and eye make-up connotes elegance and peace.

The artists in Q tend to be young artist and appeal both genders while magazines like NME seem to have a predominantly male audience.The barcode, date, issue number and price of Q are there because all commercial magazines need this information on their cover. However, most designer will consider them not as important as other things on the page and will make them as small and inconspicuous as possible.

Contents Page

The contents page is quite simply made, however it is still effective. The page features a masthead, but it is a lot smaller and less dominating. The colour scheme continues from the front page onto the contents page. The content its self is featured down the left hand side along with the information that is in the magazine every month and on the right hand side is a large picture of one of the bands featured in the magazine. Above the picture are details of the magazine that were previously shown on front cover. A lot of magazines have a box of information on subscription on their contents pages but Q doesn't seem to follow this trend. The contents page is one of the very first pages in the whole magazine, therefore persuading you to continue to read the magazine.Other bands are listed down the side of the page but are in a small font to the main feature as they are of less importance but still important enough to be listed on the cover. This means audiences can view the main feature a swell as the lesser features.

Double page spread

Q’s double page spread is clearly split into full A4 picture and the article.

      - There isn’t a lot of colour in this colour, only black, white and the big red drop capital.

      - Lady Gaga’s name changes font style front italics to block capitals.

      - The black and white picture matches the style of the magazine.

      - The convention of a young artist still applies to this example of the magazine.

      - The Q logo is in the bottom right hand corner on every page as well as the issue number and the page number. 

Overall the magazine is left to a simplistic nature with only one main image grabbing your attention this is focused upon and everything else is left for the audience to notice once they have had their attention grabbed by the cover image and title, it follows a three set colour scheme of white black and red while following again another simplistic style of keeping text on bold block backgrounds to further stand out.