Secondary Research: Front Covers

To build upon my knowledge of what my magazine should contain, I will need to perform some secondary research, to investigate standards and conventions of the industry, and analyse which I should conform to, and which (if any) I should challenge or confront.

The most popular magazine comparable to my own is NME. This is partly aimed at the indie music scene and culture, and has gained outstanding popularity.

From this front cover, I can see that my logo will have to be bold and striking, to challenge the rest of the content on the page. The front page itself is very content heavy, and uses colours that are striking but complementary to eachother. The covers I have seen also almost always feature one main figure as a focal point on the page to draw the audiences eye in, then the text is positioned around the focal point to further engage them.

Another magazine cover worth looking at is Kerrang. Although slightly more leaned at the rock scene with it's dark, harsh colouring, the layout will be applicable to magazine I am going to be creating.

This cover seems to follow some of the conventions of the NME front cover. Both include a bold and striking masthead, that is still perfectly understandable, even if obscured slightly. Again, this cover makes use of a focal point image to attract the attention of the audience, with bold text surrounding it to keep interest. I will need to consider these points when creating my magazines, and stick to these basic conventions.