Music Magazine Research: Annotated Examples and Comparison

I have compared two well known music magazines that are currently out on the market; NME and Q. I have annotated examples of each of their front covers, contents pages and double page spreads, I have also compared them to show differences between the two and also to highlight any ideas I can select from the examples for my own music magazine.

 The front covers of both NME and Q are similar, this is possibly due to the fact that both of their target audience are interested in the same genre of music, which is indie/alternative. Both magazines place their mastheads in the top left corner and they are both coloured red as to attract the eye of the consumer, as red is the colour that is first seen by the human eye. Both magazines use puffs/plugs, different sizes, styles and colours of font, smaller images and a large main image of a musician. These all attract the reader and appeal to them as they will want to read about music and be enticed to purchase the magazine. I will use these strategies on my own music magazine to make the product suitable and appealing for my target audience.

The contents pages of both NME and Q magazine differ. NME (above:left) displays more images to go alongside cover-lines, thus interesting the reader as it gives them something visual to look at that is relevant to their taste. Each main cover-line that is featured in the magazine has a short explanation to give the audience a taster of what they will be reading about. This is also similar in the contents page of Q (above:right). Q also displays their logo again at the top left and bottom left of the page, this is to show the iconic theme of the magazine. All of the cover-lines are displayed along the left side of the page as to keep the information on the focussed side where the audience will read first. On the right side of the page there is a large image to highlight the main story featured in the magazine. I like the idea of selecting the main story and making it stand out, therefore I will try to incorporate this to my own music magazine contents page. Overall I prefer the layout of Q's contents page as it is kept simple yet effective with the use of borders and columns to make it easier for the reader to navigate around the pages, although NME's front cover is interesting and appeals to the target audience due to the chaotic layout, I feel that just by simply highlighting important key stories and points in my magazine with the use of colours, fonts and borders, it is more effective and eye-catching for the audience.

Both NME's and Q's double page spreads are very similar. Both use a large image on the right side of the page, with the information on the left, this allows the readers eyes to move from the left to the right. Both use a drop capital to introduce the audience to the text and pull out quotes to highlight important/interesting parts of the text. This is done as to draw attention from the reader which will probably be scanning through the magazine, if they see something that appeals to them displayed bigger, it may entice them to read more. Therefore I will use this idea in my own music magazine double page spread.