mag analysis

RWD magazine is a urban magazine based on underground music, clothing and performing arts.  It consists of range of different artists in this particular area of music eg) hip hop, grime, dubstep, funky, bassline, drum & bass, r'n'b and US house. the magazine tends to focus a lot on UK life style.

It’s called RWD and short for ‘rewind magazine’, which relates to music, and often DJs when played rewind good songs. This magazine targets young teenagers (13 years of age) to mid 20’s because of its informal language and coloring. The main colors used are black, yellow and blue. The uses of these colors are to show to bring about a dark vibe to the magazine, which attracts the eye of both sexes. The main image would usually have urban music stars or underdogs that are on the peak to blow in the musical world. The body languages are mainly slouched or maybe dance movements and the clothing is always casual to draw a youthful attention. The writing is in bold letters and and a graffiti styled font. This targets young people and stands out as more urban. On some of the RWD magazines, there is a lot of copy/text but on some, like this example there is only a sub heading. This is effective because it focuses more on the main story of the magazine. The text relates to the targeted audience being young urban music fans as it says 'B-Boy special' which sounds like street slang. RWD have a website which links to the magazine but has more interaction and media sources like music audio, music videos and artist profiles. this magazine was brought about around late 2003 and the main cause of this was due to the uprise of the urban genre of music, grime.

Kerrang is a magazine that revolves around the rock, metal, and indie genre of music. The magazine is targeted at young adults and teenagers that love this kind of music. Like RWD, this magazine usually has a popular artist or underdog on the front to appeal to the target audience. The main image usually looks dull and moody to bring across the whole gothic feeling. In relation to the image on the front, the main colors are black, red and white, which relates to the whole gothic side of music. The title of the magazine is to refer to the revving of a heavy guitar sound and it’s portrayed on a broken glass image, which depicts loud sounds. The copy is placed at the bottom of the main image that fills almost the whole page. This makes the main image more obvious and outstanding. the bold and colorful writing on the page helps to attract more of a young audience and as it contrasts with the gothic conventions on the page, it appeals more to the target audience being young rock/emo styled music lovers. The main heading stating, 'My Chemical Romance' sounds like an oximoron and comes across as  slightly disturbing which also targets the target audience because rock music is usually associated with disturbed contents.

preliminary task contents page finished

This is my contents page. I tried to keep the theme consistent throughout my magazine by keeping the colors the same. The blue background, yellow and black writing are still similar to the front cover as they have the school colors. I also used the same font because too much of a change would be unattractive to the audience. To still keep the page informal, I made my copy/text slanted along with the images. I placed page numbers on the copy and the images. The images I used are relative to the text and are used as tasters for what the pages will be based on. I only used images on this page for the bigger stories. I purposely made the background darker on the contents rather than lighter like on the front page because I wanted my audience to look more at the text. I tried to make my text like punch lines, which would sound comical and would appeal to my audience.

preliminary task finished front page

This is my front cover of my magazine. I chose these specific colors (yellow, blue and white) as they represent the school uniform. The logo is also used in the top right hand corner (a hot spot) for representation. The masthead is simple and uses the same font as the school logo but also includes the 6th form centre. I used a picture of myself holding headphones, as the main image just to highlight that music would be a main topic in the magazine. The other images are used in a similar way as they relate to the main stories/strap lines on the front. My subheadings are bold and have a different font so they stand out and attract the audience. across the middle of the front page is my kicker which tells us about the main story in the magazine. This includes an image of what it's about and a different style of font all on top of a dark blue strip. To keep the audience in touch and involved, there's contact information at the bottom of the front. This is all on a golden yellow background.