Music Magazine GenresBy Eloise Barrett

I have been looking into some different music magazine genres to get an idea on which genre I want to do and also to look for some ideas for my own, e.g. colour schemes, types of pictures, etc. All of this will help me when I come to design my own.

PopPop magazines are generally bright and colourful, which attracts the readers as they will stand out more then say a rock magazine. The audience that they aim for is usually young girls as the colours are mainly pink and purple and the main star/stars on the front cover are usually in the charts which is probably what the younger generation listen to so they will recognise who they are. The language they use is very simple as I said before they are aiming for a younger audience so they are making it simple enough for them to read. The text to image ratio is around 1:3. There is clearly more images then text as it is, like I said before, for the younger generation, this is because some of them may not be ‘big’ readers so there is still some text but more pictures.

RockRock magazines generally use dark, gloomy, dull colours as they relate to ‘heavy rock’. Target audience for rock magazines varies as they are not made for one specific age group, but people would say they were aimed for males, teenagers and middle aged. Specifically, the language used in Kerrang is slang and there are quotes taken from band members and people who have been to their gigs to try and increase the readers interest in the specific band. The language used towards some of the bands are quite biased, and sometimes ‘bad’ reports are given to a certain band to start a debate/discussion between fans but actually others might have really enjoyed the bands gig. The text to image ratio, I would say is 2:1, there is definitely more text then pictures but it’s not very noticeable as there are quite a few pictures.

R‘n’BMost R‘n’B magazines are either bright or dark colours, just take a look at the ones bellow. The one with Kanye West on is very bright with pink and blue text as the main colours, whereas the one with Drake on is in black and white with just a yellow masthead. I would say the main target audience for these types of magazines would be teenagers, any gender, because of the the main picture used on the front cover, as they are either the latest R‘n’B singers or they are well known by people. I have looked into it and I am not too sure on what type of language they use and what the text to image ratio is.

Hip-HopHip-hop was originated by African-Americans residing in the South Bronx in New York City in the early 1970’s. Hip-hop magazines usually stick to the colours red, which indicates power and authority, yellow, black and white. I would say their target audience is around 16-20, just because of the people in the hip-hop industry, e.g. Beyoncé, Jay Z, Eminem. Everyone knows Queen B but you wouldn’t really see an 8 year old listening to her or a 50 year old listening to her, same with Jay Z and Eminem. I haven’t ever read a hip-hop magazine but because of the target audience they are going for, I would say the language would be informal, maybe, formal and the text to image ratio would be about 1:1 because even they are older teens and early adults they may still like to look at the pictures and read the small captions underneath.

Summary

Overall, with every sort of magazine they all have their own unique colour scheme, target audience and information. Like you can tell throughout the 4 slides, you can see how the language changes within the different genres, just like the text to image ratio. The younger the target audience the more pictures it will have and the less writing it will have and just the other way round for older target audiences.