Denotation: The magazine cover consists of a colour photograph of a man looking directly at the camera it is a medium close up showing his head, half of his body and his arms being lifted up above the waist. The background is a light grey. The photograph of the man covers the page but with also little pictures of other people around the sides in different places.
In front of his hair is the KERRANG masthead and there is a main cover line in front of the man in red stating his band. There is lots of cover lines put into different sections keeping to the white, red and black colour scheme.
There is a barcode in the bottom right of the page.
The masthead is very prominent on the page its colours are bright or exciting is just white writing on a black backdrop with black lines going through the letters like a smash. It is in a san serif font and I fell it makes it look strong and Morden, having implications that it keeps up to date with the latest music and is strongest at doing that as a magazine. ‘KERRANG!’ is onomatopoeic for a power chord on an electric guitar, which would refer to rock usually metal or any other heavy rock. There is also a radio station and TV channel linked to the magazine with the same music so you might see it for the first time and link it to them. Also the ‘!’ makes it sound load and so you link to load music, it has lines going through the letters making it look like the word had been smashed, making it look more hardcore and of course with heavy rock bands you see that a lot of them like to smash things on stage and so you know from the masthead if you like rock you will want to pick up this magazine.
The colour photograph is of Jared Leto the lead singer of 30 seconds to mars, (a rock band). He is in a black leather jacket looking at the camera in a sinister way, he also has his fist clenched in is other hand it makes him look dark and bad which Jared isn’t usually known for as a person, the coverline that relates to the photograph then says “I could be your worst enemy” as a quote of his and ‘Jared Leto’s dark side exposed’ this could then appeal to women as they might find this bad boy image ‘sexy’ and want to see more about him. But then again could appeal to guys just wanting to know more about what he is talking about especially fans of the band which is a very large fan base. The big ’30 seconds to mars’ can attract people as having a very popular band as the main image and headline is always good to draw eyes.
The red/black colour scheme reminds me a lot of the emo/punk genre which Kerrang would not necessarily come on in their past but as the magazine got bigger it widened from just heavy metal to more different types of rock. But still more deep and dark colours would relate more to rock than bright colours usually relating to pop.
All the bands mentioned in the coverlines are rock bands like: 30 seconds to mars, HIM, Paramore, AFI, Enter Shikari and a few more all being in the rock Genre whatever sub-genres they may be. This is clearly stating that is a rock magazines made for fans of rock. There a puff in the shape of a star top left saying inside it ‘Meet Alice in chains’ empathising on the ‘meet’ letting people know they have a chance to win something which would be very exciting for a fan of the band, also it doesn’t say have the chance or anything that would put doubt it simply is telling the audience they are going to meet them which makes it even more appealing. Another give away is shown at the bottom as a poster special for black metal, a lot of people love to collect posters and sometimes get magazines simply for the magazines inside, which is why Kerrang have promoted that there is posters inside.
In conclusion the sans serif font connotes a modern feel and is also very bold and strong, making it known to have the latest news on the rock scene and to be confidant about it as well. I would say that the target audience is both male and female aged between 16 and 30, people with a good knowledge of rock and a love for it. I believe Kerrang take great thought into their audience and are very confident in their magazine, they also look like they are still trying to get more popular with people and collect more readers.
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