The masthead is at the top of the page, and is short and memorable which is a front page convention. On this cover, the masthead is written in a large font, and the ‘smashed’ effect of the font could be related to the rock genre.
The white colour used on the masthead allows it to contrast against the rest of the magazine front cover, meaning that it is eye catching to the audience.
The name ‘Kerrang!’ could once again be related to the genre because with the bands you see featured within the magazine, they are all quite loud, which you could associate with the word ‘Bang’ which rhymes with ‘Kerrang!’
The Skyline of the magazine is at the top of the page like it should be, and is written in red, black and yellow font. The red font is outlined in black, and like the black font – is written on a yellow background.
The yellow font what says ‘free!’ is written in capital letters, and is bold and written on a black background. The word ‘free’ is quite appealing to people, because quite often people feel that they are getting their amount of money that they paid for the magazine, depending on what the gift is.
Because the offer is from Oli Sykes’s clothing brand, and because Oli Sykes is the main feature of the magazine, this is a good way of attracting the people who would be interested in both the article on Oli Sykes, and also the offer of the ‘Drop Dead’ clothing brand.
Main Images can say a lot about the main article in the magazine. On this front cover, a photo of Oli Sykes is used from the band ‘Bring me the Horizon’.
It links in with the screamer on the front cover, and the caption of ‘You Don’t Know ME!’ In the main image Oli Sykes can be seen covering half of his face with his hand, which could link in with ‘You Don’t Know ME!’ as his hand over his face and his facial expressions also suggest a sense of mystery. Eye contact is made by Oli Sykes from the main image.
However, you can only see his left eye as his hand is covering his right eye. Despite this, by looking at his left eye, and the eye contact made, this could encourage the reader to read more into the story featuring Oli Sykes.
There are four thumbnail images on the main cover and are all complimented with information regarding what the photos are associated with within the magazine.
The majority of magazines tend to have thumbnails on the front cover because it allows readers to also see what other articles are in the magazine without them having to look through the contents page to find out the information.
With the text that accompanies the thumbnail images, the text is also in a colour that contrasts against the image and also sticks in with the colour scheme of the magazine.
For example, the thumbnail image of Marilyn Manson has three main images – black, white and blue. This is quite a ‘gloomy’ effect which is what you would stereotypically label the gothic culture, which you would also relate to Marilyn Manson.
The text written across the thumbnail image is written in white and red yet placed on a black background. Black and red are also colours you would associate with the gothic culture.
Every magazine has a barcode, and they are always at the bottom right hand side of the front cover as this is a front page convention. The barcode is usually placed at the bottom right corner of the magazine because most of the important information about articles etc which are inside the magazine are usually placed in the ‘left third’ part of the page.
The reason as to why important information is usually placed in the left third of the page is because this is what can usually be seen in the typical layout of a magazine shelf in a newsagents or supermarket. Depending on the way you look at the magazine cover, varies on the ideology and people’s opinions of the magazine.
For this magazine cover, my first opinion is that they are trying to focus on stereotypes given to people. The people who read Kerrang! and people who are interested in the bands featured within Kerrang! are often grouped with the stereotypes of ‘emo’ and ‘goth’.
When looking at Oli Sykes, you would associate him with the subcultures such as ‘emo’ because of his vocal type, and also because of his appearance (his tattoos etc). This could link in with the ‘You don’t know ME!’ as this suggests that people don’t know the real ‘him’ though he is suggesting that people think that they do.
‘Bauer Media’ is the institution of Kerrang! and owns and publishes many magazines, all from various genres such as Gardening, to magazines about cars. Because there are not many magazines relating to the music genre that Kerrang! do, this was likely to be an open market which ‘Bauer Media’ could make a profit from.
Kerrang! is predominantly aimed at sub cultures who are going to be interested in the genres of music that are featured in the magazine.
In this issue of Kerrang!, the target audience is going to be aimed at fans of Oli Sykes and Bring me the Horizon because they are the main article of the magazine, and have a huge feature on the front cover too.
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