Fintan Cadden
AS Media
Magazine Analysis: Rocksound
Front Cover
Production
The magazine is produced by french publisher freeway, with it being produced ona monthly basis
Price
Each month the magazine costs £3.60.
Circulation
The circulation of Rocksound 13,924
Target Market
Rocksound is aimed at more of a niche market as the only people to read it will be hardcore rock fans, the median age of readers is 21 so the magazines design is altered for this market. due to this the design is less sophisticated and more 'bold'.
Monthly Revenue from sales
Each month there will be £4,177.2 monthly revenue from the sales of Rocksound (approximately)
Title
The title 'Rocksound' suggest a magazine entirely based on the genre of rock music and this could turn off people who are not directly fans of the rock genre. The sub genres mostly featured are heavy metal, hardcore rock and punk music, with it hardly covering indie rock.
Masthead/title logo
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Strapline
The top strapline of this magazine promotes posters from the artists 'Biffy' and 'Paramore', as this is just above the title and in clear plain sight to the reader, fans of these bands are more likely to buy this magazine due to their favourite bands having 'free' posters inside. Due to this more readers are drawn in causing more sales of the magazine. The top strapline is also in a different font and colour to the rest of the front cover, making it bolder and stand out more to the readers. There is also no visible bottom strapline in this edition
Main image
The main image is a photo of a band all staring down the camera, all with an intimidating pose and stature, they are all wearing similar coloured dark clothing to show themselves as intimidating. This could reach out to the target audience as it could represent how they like to dress and show them to have similar links to their favourite artists. The body language is shown as threatening not welcoming, which can represent the rock music genre, the photo is also taken from a photo-shoot, and not a live action shot. The photo is a medium shot as it shows the artists from the waist up.
Coverline
The main coverline feature a story from the band promoted in the main image, which has a description of the story inside and also an interesting and intriguing quote from the article inside, this will cause the audience to go on and read this to result in more sales and a larger audience. The description quickly tell the reading what information the story will contain, which is also there to make the article more interesting and appealing.
Typefaces and graphics
The colours of the text are very bold and stand out, whilst the fonts are rigid and broken in order to represent rock music. There is only a few different colours on the cover, so it doesn't become overwhelming and distracting, but yet still bold and bright enough to stand out and grab attention. The fonts used are not the most formal and can be seen as almost handwritten to how an aspect of both the magazine and the music genre.
Language features
All text is in small sentences and bullet point form, there is no long worded paragraphs on the front cover. They use a pull quote which speaks to the reader through using quotes that could be relatable to the reader and make them want to buy this magazine. The text in the headline is a san-serif font, making it look more like handwriting and a little less formal.
Relations to other magazines
'Rocksound' is a very unique type of magazine as it largely aims at a different audience to many other magazines, although it does still have a link to the same music type as KERRANG! it is still set out and displayed extremely differently and are little similarities apart from the genre it is based on. The colours, fonts and Coverlines are both displayed differently making them different and unique magazines
Distinctive features about the cover
The magazine has a slogan saying 'music with attitude' and their is also another smaller image, of a band mid-concert performing which links to another story. There is also another promotion for winning tickets to an event, which once again draws in more of an audience. The whole front cover is also under one house style with similar fonts and same few colours used around the page allowing the headlines to stand out but yet not allowing the cover to be too crowded.
Inside magazine analysis
Amount of pages
In this edition of Rocksound There are 130 page, with 24 of these being adverts.
Types of products advertised
In this Rocksound magazine the products advertised are largely just advertisements for tours and CDs of various rock-bands. But there are also other advertisements as well, these are aimed at an older age group due to the products advertised, such a Jagermeister which is an alcoholic drink so aimed at people aged 18 and above. This relates to the readership of the magazine.
Article topics in the magazine
The main article, which is the one featured as the headline is about the band 'Funeral for a friend' and features a pull quote which says 'almost drove me mad' which shows the term of the interview inside. Another big feature which is the record reviews, stating that 150 are reviewed so this a big pull to the readers of the magazine, which the main genre they originate from is rock. In this edition there are also various different articles and pictures throughout.
Doule page spreads
Throughout this edition of Rocksound there are 15 double page spreads, the majority of these are articles about various artists and their life stories or interviews, but some of these are also advertisements, whilst others are all about albums and songs.
Advertorials
In this magazine there are no advertorials on show.
Magazines unified house style
Through the magazine there is no thorough house style on show, apart from darker/black colours. Although there only little amounts of red on the front cover, both the contents page, and double page spread feature red creating a recognised house style, which pairs along with dark and black colours.
How does the house style speak to the audience
The audience is largely rock fans and the readership has a median age of about 21. They speak to the audience through using more bold, vivid colours and fonts, rather than longer worded sophisticated pieces of text. This is achieved by using more broken and unstructured fonts and having more edge to it compared to other magazines like Q magazine
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