Analysis of Music magazine 1

The Rolling Stone magazine is a famous music magazine that was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by a lady called Jann Wenner. It is devoted to politics, music and pop culture and is published every two weeks.

Every edition of the magazine has the same style font for the title, but the colour is always different. This adds cohesion to the magazine and makes the title very recognisable. The name Rolling Stones is a very appropriate name for a music magazine as there was a famous band called the Rolling Stones. Most people know that there has been a band called the rolling stones and they were a very popular band at the time the magazine was created so this would appeal to the audience.

The main image uses direct mode of address, in which Amy Winehouse is somewhat looking straight into the eyes of the reader. In addition, her head overlaps the majority of the title, which suggests that he is the main focus of the front cover and possibly the whole magazine. The title is very infamous so even though she is covering it up you can still work out what it says. Amy Winehouse is on the front cover, for the reason that she is well known and would attract the target audience for this magazine.The anchorage text states that the main image is that of Amy Winehouse. The name of the artist as the main image is larger than the rest of the text, in which it is the second largest font size on the whole of the front cover, which suggests that it is the second most important feature on the page other than the title.

The title
In this edition of the Rolling Stones magazine, the title is the colour blue. The title is hidden by the main image. Even though the title is covered the audience will still know that it says Rolling Stones because it is such an infamous name. The magazine has chosen the colour blue because it stands out from the background and the person in the main image is not a very girly person so it would not look appropriate to have a pink coloured title or another feminine colour.

On the left side of the magazine, there are other titles and bits of information to tell the audience what else they will find in the magazine. A variety of different fonts are used to make different parts of text stand out.

“Giuliani: worse than bush”-This text has been put into a text box that stands out because it is an important piece of information. The creator of the magazine wants this piece of information to come across as important to the audience and by making it different to the rest of the magazine the audience’s eye is attracted to it

This edition of the magazine only has text on one side of the magazine (the left) and the right side is mainly taken up by the main image. This shows that the rolling stones are going against regular codes and conventions. The audience will perceive this in the way that the people that feature in Rolling Stones are unconventional and go against normal rules of society. This is adding cohesion to the magazine because they are sticking to the theme of going against norms.

The design of the title block suggests that the magazine is aimed at all ages of people not just he old or the young. However the font style is not particularly young fresh and hip meaning that they want to attract readers that are interested styles of music that are not necessarily in the charts.

The font used in this magazine is very funky! It is not the type of text that is normally expected to be used on a magazine cover. It goes against convention which reflects the attitudes and behaviours of the people that are featured in the magazine. When the audience sees the text they will instantly know what type of music artists are featured in the magazine. The text used is often linked to rock music, e.g. used on their album covers. The other text used is quite ordinary, which helps the text of the title to stand out and have a greater effect. The colours that are used (red blue and white) also add to the style of music as they are quite strong colours that make a statement rather than having just black and white. This will definitely appeal to the magazine’s target audience.