FontOnly one font is used throughout the page. This lack of variation is a huge break in typical magazine conventions that usually utilize a variety of fonts to continue drawing in the audience. The absence of variety normally leaves a page looking very bland, this magazine however, has manipulated their single font to create the appearance of several very similar fonts which all work together in their similar appearance to create a very strong house style for the page. Examples of this include using a bold format on their heading “Rock Sound” and then a normal formatted, smaller sized “July 2008”; although these use the same font, the formatting of bold has made the fonts appear different enough for the reader to discern which is the heading and furthermore which is the more important piece of text.

Sub-headingsSimilar to most music magazine this magazine uses its Band names for sub-headings. Unlike most magazines however this magazine has only one heading on its contents page, this means the magazine heavily relies on its readers’ familiarity with the magazine. In the aspect of practical usage this contents page is lacking, readers only have main features highlighted, it’s as though the magazine is promoting those pages as the only ones worth reading which is counterproductive of it. The only logical reasoning behind this may be that the readers’ biggest appeal is to these main features and that the magazine knows there is very little interest in the other features in comparison. However this still belittles those sections not included in the magazine for those interested and could be greatly improved with its directional premise by including these more minor features in the contents. The magazine has carefully selected a white on black appearance for its subheadings, so as to make them stand out more, this is also done for the descriptive text below it to make reading visibly easier.

QuoteThe quote uses direct mode of address in its language; with words such as “you”. This language feature involves the audience with the text and makes them try to understand and relate with the text. The quote also, like most magazines, uses emotional language in its writing. The emotion in this quote is in the form of an inside joke. This inside joke would only be understood at first by fans of the group; however the Main image that this quote relates to helps those in the audience who are not familiar understand that this is a humorous quote and not a serious plea for help. This tells us that the magazine respects and may actually be aimed at a form of audience who don’t know the ins and outs of every band and are more of a casual listener, This greatly refutes typical music magazine conventions of the genre, however does appeal to a wider audience.

Direct mode of address

Colour SchemeThe colour scheme of this page is very simple, black is background, white is the font and red is for highlighting key parts of the text. The simplicity of this is what makes this page so easy to read; the main text stands out against the black background nicely and has secured the house style of the page. However, the “Main Features” heading does not set well with the main image, and because the image would look weird with a text box covering half of the sleeve, no black text box has been used either. The red font is hard to read because of this as it has 2 contrasting colours that it’s layered upon. By using a full black background, both the majority of the text and main image stand out without one overpowering the presence of the other as usual magazines tend to do. This ensures the whole page is gripping and not just one portion.

LayoutThe layout of this contents page is quite different from others of the same genre. Rather than having many images there is only 1 main image. This image has then become the background of eh page as well and the editors have made use of the spacing on the right to put in the page numbers. While the main image may appear overwhelming at first, upon close inspection you can see that the black text boxes do actually layer over this, demonstrating the focus of the page is still the text rather than the image. This however requires closer inspection and a glance the audience may give the page would display them as evenly prominent features of the page, where on the left is an image and information is on the right, easy to locate and a key function of the contents page’s purpose.

Main imageThe main image is a mid-shot of Matt Skiba wearing a rebellious schoolboy outfit. This is indicated by his unbuttoned shirt, body language and tattoos found on both his hand and arm. This outfit is very close to the stereo-type of an english “Chav”. This stereo-type while aesthetically recognizable by anyone will be better known by the younger audience especially those under the age of 25. The Yanking of Matt’s mouth is quite an aggressive gesture and is likely related to the caption quote beneath the image. Using this caption it can be interpreted that the yanking arm is a metaphor for the bands’ threat. This image has cleverly used this idea and combined it with his facial expressions using the yanking to exaggerate his facial expression of unwillingness. This shot of Matt uses a direct mode of address in the form of eye-contact to engage the audience in the scenario of the shot, the shot of a rebellious looking teenage being forced to do something they don’t want to, this may even be a familiar concept for the viewers and this similarity is an appealing aspect to the target audience.

Editor’s Note

No note, this suggests the audience have little connection with the magazine staff or particularly care about the content creators.

AdvertsNone, not even subscriptions. Likely that left hand page is an advert?