This contents page from Kerrang's January 2010 issue uses a number of images which have been constructed especially to indicate what stories are going to be featured inside the magazine and what they are going to be about. They have been constructed especially by making the reader see these certain images and want to know the full story behind it, therefore having to go out and buy it. This contents page mainly supports my initial findings of what Kerrang magazine is about and what their target audience wants, but there also some things that oppose the hard-rock readership of Kerrang which I discovered from research into the magazine. The things that support my research into Kerrang is the type of bands that are featured in the contents page, them all being very rock-orientated artists which can be told from what is shown in the images.
An example of this is that almost all images feature a person with some sort of instrument like the guitar, or are acting wildly which many rock singers/bands are known for doing. The thing that surprised me and also opposes my initial findings of the magazine is the fact that the Editor of the magazine is a woman, furthermore who gives off no signs from the image that she enjoys any of the rock music that is featured in the magazine. This opposes my initial findings as Kerrang is seen as more of a male-orientated magazine as most bands and artists featured in it are male, and the wildness and out-there behaviour that rock bands portray are stereotypically very male and masculine due to the violence and aggression of it. On this contents page, there are 9 images including the 3 images of previous covers in the corner.
There are 3 main colours that are used in this contents page, which are Black, White and Yellow. Rock magazines such as Kerrang like to use dark colours such as black to associate with the dark and rebellious image that comes with the rock genre. As you can see by the front cover above, this colour scheme is similar to the contents page but doesn't clearly support the same use of style. This can be told as on the front cover there is a huge use of the colour blue by having the background of the main image blue and also some text, where as in the contents page there is next-to-no use of the colour blue. This shows that there isn't really a development of a house style as it would be difficult to tell that these two pages are from the same magazine excluding the title block and other little things such as the use of yellow as the anchorage text.
The font used in this magazine is sans-serif, which makes it much more informal yet gives less impact than serif, which opposes their readership as rock music is seen as being in-your-face and very aggressive in contrast the the use of font. This use of font shows another contrast in the style of both the front cover and the contents page as serif font and other types of fonts are used mainly on the front cover in order to show impact and appeal to the rock music fans where as when you open the magazine it uses a softer san-serif font, with the magazine almost selling a false image that the magazine will be more hard hitting and serious than it actually is. This again shows a small amount of development in a house style of the magazine's layout as the use of fonts on both pages are completely different, making it harder to identify the layout of the front cover from the contents page.
The information on the contents page is organised very well so it is easily accessible to the audience and pages can be easily navigated to. You can see this as all the information that the audience needs to know and how to get to the page is at the bottom half of the page and has clear titles for all the different types of things that are included in the magazine and how to get there which are split into different sections. The different sections that the information is categorised into are Feedback, News, Swag, Live Reviews, Features, Album Reviews, Gig Guide & K Quiz!, making it easy to choose which part of the magazine you would most like to read. In order to make the contents page eye catching and annunciate which articles are important, etc, they include little images next to the features reading 'Cover Story' to appeal to the target audience as they chose to open the magazine due to what was on the cover, making it clear that that is where the stories are that they heard a snippet of on the cover. This tells us that the magazine is very clearly organised in a detailed fashion which is ultimately beneficial to the reader as they can find the story they want very quickly.
There are hardly any obvious promotional features on this contents page except for one, which would be the promotion of the magazine itself in the bottom-right corner assisting people to subscribe to Kerrang magazine and have it delivered to their house for a cheap price. This promotion is completely beneficial to the magazine and itself only as they are using their own page space to promote their own magazine, so only they benefit from it. This is the only obvious promotional feature that the contents page has, however there is one big and less obvious promotion that the magazine offers and that of which any music magazine offers, which is the promotion of the artist or band. This magazine does well in promoting artists and bands by talking about them and mentioning the music they produce, which is beneficial to them as well as the magazine as it makes people aware of them therefore more people will go out and buy there music and they will make more money. Kerrang benefits from this promotion as people want to know about these bands or artists, so by mentioning them they are giving the target audience what they want leading them to buy the magazine. They also promote some bands or artists more than others depending on popularity, etc, by having them as one of their features which are one of the most important parts of the magazine.
The magazine's logo is placed only once on the contents page, and this is in the centre which would be the first thing you see when you see the page. This also represents how the name is the centre of the whole magazine and it is where the whole magazine started and what it represents. The logo is quite dominant as it is rather large and is a different colour from the text next to it however the text next to it is yellow where as the actually logo itself is just plain white, which really makes the less important text beside it more eye-catching and dominant then the logo itself. Despite this however, the logo is still very large and dominant in the centre of the page and is very iconic. The Kerrang franchise spreads to many areas, including a TV channel, Radio station, website and its very own award ceremony. It is also published in Spain and there is also an Australian version, with none of these other franchises promoted on the contents page of the magazine except for the magazine itself.
By Harry Luke Mulvany
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