Anaylsing 'Kerrang!'

Analysing ‘Kerrang!’

Colour

Black - Dark, Gothic, Leather (Metal clothing is denim and leather, also the main band is wearing black)
White/Grey – Contrasting against the black and red, no real connotations
Red - Blood (Metal genre: Grim, dark, death)

The bright red title of the band instantly draws in your focus from the unimportant colours around it. Red is as a symbol of blood which is a main lyrical topic in the metal scene (will attract more people who like this genre)

Analysing Design

As with all music magazines, the main band in this magazine has centre stage on the magazines front cover with the name of the band in big writing to alert all of their fans to get this magazine. Since this is a well-known magazine and everyone knows the name of it (which you can mostly see anyway) the main band on the front is over the magazines header, to show just how big this band is. The magazine keeps with all usual magazine conventions; content banners at the top and bottom and small sub-section advert for content

Analysing Images

The first big image you come across is of the main band of this issue (Metallica). Being a giant of the metal genre they are put as a huge image on the front page to attract their huge fan base. The front man for the band is at the front of the group picture as he is the most recognisable; he is displayed in front of the title to show his importance compared to his fellow band members. Their new and relatively unknown bassist is given a small portion of the front cover.


Pose

The leader singer is standing in a smug position with a smirk on his face to show he knows how great his band is and how lucky the magazine is to be having them in their magazine. Their poses portray confidence, reassurance and general positveness.

Use of words on cover

Metallica is a huge band and is the most well known mainstream heavy metal band around, they were responsible for influencing hundreds of bands over the years and as so you can not take them lightly/. The huge important of this band on the whole genre and music history in general means the huge, thick text on the front of the cover shows this. Metallica is a giant of a band and this huge text will shows they are not to be taken lightly

Overall impression

This effective cover draws in passers by, it’s simple yet effective design added with the bright colours, huge text and influential band means that anyone even slightly connected with the metal scene would defiantly need to get this magazine

Double Page Spread




Colour

The colour scheme used in this double page is simply a black background with white text contrasting over it. The occasional spot of yellow is used to emphasise certain points and advertise what the article is about. This colour scheme does keep with the front page in a sense since it keeps the use of yellow to emphasis points and has the text in white (like most magazines) The reason for using this colour scheme is not to connote anything like ‘Metal Hammer’ magazine; it is trying to grab all of the readers attention and put it into the easily readable text, with some images to help.

Design

This page is designed to have the images in the middle of the page as the dominant feature. The images are centred in the middle; with them taking up ¾ of each page. The text around the outside is broken up with some pictures being to big and forcing the text over, as well as the occasional emphasised point in yellow. The images are used in such a way it looks like a collage or snaps someone took on a camera whilst they were there. The images are positioned incredibly well, as soon as you open the page they are right there in front of you so you can see what great bands this article has.

Images

The images used in this double page spread are of the bands that are playing at ‘Sonisphere’ festival, which is what these pages are about. The pictures are have been put in the magazine in such a way it looks as if they have been pieced together to from some ones snapshots from attending the festival before, instantly showing that it was good enough to attend again. One of the pictures is of the audience raising their ‘horns’ up at a band playing on stage, once again telling readers how great this festival was and how the following article will let them capture the magic of it.

Pose

The poses of most of the band members captured in the images are doing what you would expect of a band member from a heavy metal band at a concert; playing their instruments, shouting at the audience and head banging. This is what all heavy metal bands do, reinforcing the point that this is a heavy metal festival and the audience is expected to do what people attending this sort of festival should do; head bang and go insane. The poses all show the characters to be in a very strong position (a feature of metal music)

Use of words

The words used in these pages are not the focus point of this page and as such are not forced open the reader in any way; they are more accompanying the images along because they have to. The images have small captions to add some humour to lighten up the heavy atmosphere of this magazine to some extent. The one extract from the article is in huge bold letters to signify its importance or the importance of the person who said it, in this case both due to the extract trying to point out how amazing this festival was and having the front man from the band that was headlining it to say how amazing it was as well.

Overall impression

These pages are all about showing the reader how great the festival in the article was. The images are what you would expect to see from a heavy metal show and the use of wording in the article form this one big package that states how great this article is going to be. The odd design of the page works well with the chosen images and the ‘out of the way’ text is effected by the images drawing the readers attention to getting them to want to know more about this article.

Contents Page

Colours

Kerrang’s contents page keeps its colour scheme as white, black and yellow to emphasis points or show headings, this colour scheme is prominent through all Kerrang magazines. The black text on the white background instantly contrasts and makes the text easier to read as well as standing out much more, the use of yellow on a black highlight. After looking at the main picture that is set before the reader their eyes are then instantly drawn to the index on the right with its clever use of the black text on white background and yellow text on black background at the same time.

Design

Kerrang’s contents page is a standard contents page you would expect from any magazine; main stories with images to accompany them and an index down the side. The page is designed with simplicity in mind so that the reader can easily look for the articles that they want to read whilst the images help them to pick as well as advertising what is in store for the reader such as the competitions, interviews and reviews.

Images

The images on this page all play an important role in advertising the magazine. Four of the images are of bands either posing for a photo shoot or on stage playing their instruments – allowing the reader to easily scan to see what bands are included in this issue. The rest of the pictures are also used to help advertise what is in this issue with a picture of a Gibson electric guitar that you can win in a competition in this magazine as well as a picture of a band front man walking with women either side of him (defiantly going to attract male readers to that article).

Poses

The poses on this page vary from picture to picture. On the one hand you have the normal band members playing instruments or just messing about at a concert – obviously attracting the audience that prefers the live, frantic articles and news but on the other hand you have the staged photo shoot and picture of a ‘glam rocker’ who take their image above the music – which attracts the more relaxed crowd that prefers to buy the albums and listen to them in their own time casually. The poses here attract both audiences very well, whichever category you fall into.

Use of words

The choice of wording on the contents page is important – it needs to be enough to warrant the readers attention but not too much to give the whole article away in one sentence. In terms of text features there isn’t a lot to say, Kerrang want to keep this contents page plain, simple and easy to read so it does not put off any potential readers (although the main picture on this page says otherwise)

Overall impression

The impression received from this content page is how plain it is – but not in a bad way. The fact that this contents page is so plain means that the team has spent far more time worrying about whether the content of the magazine is top notch instead of placing all their time and effort on making it look good. The plainness of this content page is not so much to make you think that as soon as you open the page, what strikes you at first the amount of ‘top stories’ since they have pictures accompanying as well as the add promise of hopefully winning a guitar.