evaluation of Kerrang Magazine.

This week in lesson we looked at two very different music magazines, them being 'KERRANG' and 'NME'. I analysed both of them in my book however i'm only focusing on one of them in which you get the obvious idea it will be 'KERRANG'.





This is a weekly magazine that costs £2.20, its genre is rock therefore it would appeal to people who are into rock music. When pronouncing the title 'KERRANG' is an onomatopeia it sounds like a musical tune this could be representing the idea of a musical instrument in which links with the whole idea of rock. On the cover it gives you an insight to whats to come inside, it also offers things such a free posters of what would possibly be peoples idols.

The main colours used on the front cover are black, white, the bright blue and the bright pink, I'd say the black has most probably been used as its often the colour that links a resembles a rock artist and bands. The face theyve used pink and blue is unusual in my opinion however it could be representing the stereotypical idea of it being a magazine for boys and girls (the pink for girls the blue for boys) now to explain the white I think its used just to seperate colours up and to give a bit of light to what could show a dark side.

The cover of the magazine includes a joint picture of two idols from bands, one idol is more forward than the other this could show ones more important than the other, It also helps promote the magazine as you get the idea from it that the type of reader would be a dedicated music fan not only is it the focal point of the magazine i'd say it helps make the main headline stand out. The cover did also use other pictures as they included the two images of whom the free posters were of and it included two mini pictures of other band members at the top.

The font is all the same on the cover however they do vary the size to the importance of it, you get the idea from the cover its going to be about popular know bands however it does promote the unknown bands to its audience.

Overall I think the magazine does serve its purpose as a rock magazine, it offers everything you'd want in a rock magazine.

evaluation of preliminary task - front cover/contents

Before I begin my evaulation I would like to include I borrowed some pictures off my media friends due to my pictures not uploading onto the computer.

I decided on a plain red background with a header in which I made black, the reason I decided upon a plain background was because i didn't want to over crowd the page with loads of pictures. I used the colour red and black because it represented the st marks colours. To fill up some space on my bacground i selected two main images them being one of a person on the drums and the other of a ticket for a school performance; the reason i selected these images was because I thought they linked with the whole idea of my main front cover stories being themed around school performances and music. I also included a section of an image this being of bright blue lockers, I used it as a kind of border as I believed it made the front cover stand out a bit and it also shows the school has purchased new lockers. I cut out a picture of a dancer from a photo also as it linked with the whole performance story. On the front cover I varied the font style so that it wasn't all the same and because I wanted to make the text all one colour I wanted the reader to distinguish that not all the text was about the same story. Even though I used white as my text colour I still made it clear what my title was by making it the biggest text on the page and putting it specifically in the middle of the page at the top. To sum up whats included I added the st marks logo to represent the school and so it would indicate to people that it is a catholic school.


The text on my front cover are by-lines meaning they give the audience a glimpse of what will be inside the magazine, I didn't include too many of them as I didn't want to over crowd the page however I don't think I clarifyed enough on the front cover that the magazine wasn't all about just performance.

For my contents page I carried on the theme of my front cover by using the same colour background and then for a border I used the black again however I changed it so the writing and border was on the side of the page this was so I could give the text some space and layout the text in an approachable manor. I didn't include the name of the magazine or the logo as I felt it was only needed once on the cover, to give the page a bit of character I added pictures of which I thought could link with the stories.

Overall I found this project took me a fair time to achieve I therefore think next time I need to plan my time out wisely, Another thing I have learnt from this is I should approach the task with a better knowledge of whats expected of a school magazine for example I could go and ask people what they'd expect from a magazine.

front cover and contents page of school prospectus

This is my mock up plan of my school prospectus before I begun creating it, you can see I made some changes on the actual piece.

We were set the preliminary task of making a school magazine cover and contents page, this is what mine looked like after.





Evaluation to come!

analysis of two magazine covers

We was asked to analyse and annotate the front cover of two university magazines.

The first magazine was the 'QUAD' its comes from the Almuni Community of Queen Mary, a london university judging from the cover it looks as though its going to be very formal and sophisticated. At the top of the cover is the masthead in the top right corner it reads 'QUAD' in black bold writing and beside it on the left is an image of Queen Mary, this could be showing its a strict and powerful magazine. It includes an image of students graduating and members of staff, this gives me the vibe that they thrive off success from students and they see their members of staff as a huge importance to their students success, not only do they include these pictures on the cover but another group photo of students of success however its in the past giving us the idea that the university has history and many successful students. Theres two images left one being a man of some importance holding an award and another thats some sort of arena, the university looks as though its multicultural.

You can tell its formal because of the layout of the whole cover and they way no pictures are over lapping and its not using any words to persuade a person to join.

Overall I think this magazine is good in the sense of giving the university a good representation of being successful however it may throw people of the idea of joining that university due to the seriousness and impact of success its giving, it may intimidate students into thinking they're not good enough.

The other cover was for 'Newsman' a university in Birmingham, this cover portrays it as a more informal magazine this is due to the front cover being generally quite packed with things that are irrelevant to the university, the reasons for me thinking this is because of judging from looking at it personally I wouldn't know from first glance without reading the text on it that it was made for the purpose of a university, the deeper meaning to this is the image of the hulk, the small school girl and a small child playing some sort of gadget. These are the images that don't link with the theme of it being a university.

As I mentioned before there is text on the cover stating its a university however its not very informative and it doesn't tell you what the university offers, the text used is quite hard to read also because of the way its been put on there at a funny angle.

So overall i don't believe its a good front cover for a university magazine due to it not being not a very informative cover, it doesn't in any form or way portray it as a university that requires success as the main key and it doesn't give justice on it being very professional.