Kerrange Music Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Kerrang Music Magazine Analysis

As we can instantly see this is a Rock magazine. The genre of the magazines is also supported by its name. The name is onomatopoeic and refers to the sound made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar.

In this issue we see that they mostly have articles about well known bands who have been silent for a while. The  magazine is aimed at those who listen to heavy metal and rock bands. This is a niche magazine as it aims to a distinct segment of the market, in this case the rock genre. However, this magazine also aims to use other bands from different sub-genres of rock such as punk rock (green day) ,alternative rock (muse)and put them on the front cover in order to attract more readers because rock is a very distinct genre.
They are targeting people  probably age 16+. Their main interest should be rock bands.

The central image is indicating to us that the group has been raised from dead. The five members of the group all have very pale faces,dark circles around their eyes and blood smeared all over them. However the blood also indicates the pain and emotional difficulties as the group went through in the pas two years or so. This suggests to us that they want sympathetic relationship with the audience.

As you can see on the front cover there is a rock/metal band called 'Horizon'. The anchorage text supports the central picture and again implies to us that from rock bottom the group rises again. This connotes that the group has had some rough times but still manage to stay together. Meanwhile the over all message given is that the 'Horizon' has been to hell and back.

On the front cover of the Kerrang magazine there a quite a few groups represented. Mostly the magazine presents them by the 'live and loud poster special'. The magazine contains free posters of Green day, Metallica and Muse. The magazine shows off the give away by uploading their pictures in the corner of the front cover.. However the magazine does represent one other group and artist separately.

The design of the title block is damaged; again this is supporting the central image. There are lines cut through the writing this again this could be indicating why there is so much blood on the artists.

On the other hand the puffs suggest to the audience that there will be a lot of information about bands. It only states name of the bands and artists. The magazine expects to get audience who are very interested in rock legends.

Meanwhile there are three font colours ; Black,white and red. I have no problem with the colours because they are bright and attractive but not irritating.

The strategies to attract audience are very simple. They use contrasting colours,different writing fonts and their sizes.