Research into similar products: Analysis of codes and conventions of covers and contents pages

I've researched some three music magazines which are all very different in they way they present themselves and in what genres of music they promote. I'd like to make my music magazine mainly based around pop, so I think the music magazine I'll take inspiration from would have a simple presentation with a bold masthead with a single cover star without too much distracting the audience from the main story.


Q Magazine: http://www.qthemusic.com/
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom. Much of the magazine is devoted to interviews with popular musical artists. It is well known for compiling lists. It has created many, ranging from "The 100 Greatest albums" to the "100 Greatest '100 Greatest' Lists". Every other month, Q — and its sister magazine, Mojo (also owned by Bauer) — have a special edition. These have been about musical times, genres, or a very important/influential musician.







I love the way Q magazine presents themselves, you can tell that they promote different genres of music and don't segregate themselves to just one kind, which makes them open to change and variation and available to a broader audience. The presentation is effective since it doesn't have too much going on but just enough to catch the audience's eye and make them have a closer look. I also love the way the contents page is presented with tastefully placed images to give a taste of the best stories and with a simple enough colour scheme to make the images speak for themselves.

NME Magazine: http://www.nme.com/magazine

New Musical Express, popularly known by the initialism NME, created by Theodore Ingham, is a British weekly music journalism publication, published since March 1952. It is largely associated with rock, alternative and indie music.


I also love how NME is presented. I find their presentation fairly simple yet effective too and they even change the colour of the masthead every now and then.

KERRANG! Magazine: http://www.kerrang.com/
Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper. Named after the onomatopoeic word that derives from the sound made when playing a power chord on a distorted electric guitar, Kerrang!was initially devoted to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the rise of hard rock acts.



I find that there's a lot going on with the layout of the KERRANG! magazine, the colour scheme isn't that simple and there's lots of pugs to tempt in the reader and lots of cover lines and images which could detract from the main cover star (but in this case, they don't detract from the cover star at all.) I wouldn't make my music magazine presented in this way, since it's too 'in your face' for me, but it's obvious that it's a rock magazine. 


Overall, I love the way 'Q' magazine is presented and would base my pop magazine on the simple yet effective appearance.