Front Cover:
Colour scheme – The colour scheme of this front cover is black, white and a bright luminous green. The background, the picture and the writing is all mainly dark and this reflects the genre of music of the magazine because it is a heavy metal magazine and this music is often associated with dark colours and dark feelings. The luminous green is a chemical looking colour and is associated with toxic things and this will have been used for that reason because it will be attractive the the audience of this magazine, it also stands out a lot from the other dark colours. Just underneath the masthead there is a section of text which could be seen as a puff because it is surrounded by a splat of the luminous green colour, this is very effective because it stands out so much from the dark colours of the central image so as soon as you look at the magazine you see this and the word ‘free’ in capital letters which will attract anyone’s attention.
Photography – There is only one image on this magazine cover and it is very striking, it is the main focus of the whole page. It is a posed studio shot but has obviously been heavily edited to add in the background and the flies flying out of his mouth and his arms. This image has been edited to appear like this because it looks scary and angry and so will be appealing to the target audience because a lot of the music is angry and so they will be aware that this magazine fits into the genre they are interested in. The man in this image is also very well known within the heavy metal genre.
Writing style – There are no large paragraphs of writing on this cover, there are mainly subheadings which are the names of bands and a few little tag lines underneath them. Of the writing that there is, there are no proper sentences as such, just phrases and this is appealing to the audience because they are young adults and teenagers and so will not be willing to read long sentences on the cover of a magazine.
Text\picture ratio – There is only one picture on this page, however it is a very large picture which means that it is more the focus than any of the writing. Some of the writing is also very large, especially the masthead and this is eye-catching but not as prominent as the central image. I believe this is because the picture of this famous artist will be more appealing to the audience than lots of words or lots of small pictures. The fact that there is only one picture draws a lot more attention to it.
Fonts – Pretty much all of the writing on this cover is in capitals and this gives the impression that it is being shouted in the same way that most of the lyrics to a song in this genre would be sang. Some of the words are in a sans serif font and some are in a serif font however they all look fairly medieval and this is definitely appealing to the audience because the traditional, creepy and gothic style is very closely associated with the heavy metal genre. The name of the band ‘Machine Head’ is used as the main cover line and is in a fancy font that looks as though it has been scratched into the page and this is to make the magazine look less neat and clean because that would not at all be appealing to the target audience.
Publisher – The Magazine was originally published by Dennis Publishing but is now by Future Publishing. They are market leaders in Technology, Cycling and Games multi media products and are expanding their digital publishing in the hope that they can reach new audiences worldwide. Future is also the biggest publisher of music-making and guitar magazines and publish magazines including Rhythm and Classic Rock which are both aimed at the same sort of target audience that Metal Hammer is.
Contents Page:
Colour scheme – The colour scheme of the contents page is slightly different to the front cover and is predominantly black, white and red with small amounts of dark yellow here and there. Black, white and red is a very common colour scheme for alternative, rock and metal magazines and these three colours are always associated with music magazines.
Photography – There are only 4 small images on the contents section of this page and one is of the front cover, two are of double page spreads within the magazine and the last one is of a girl in a bra who would be found attractive by the target audience of this magazine because it is mainly teenage and young adult males.
Writing style – There are a few little tags underneath all the headings for each page and most of these are rhetorical questions or puns or contain alliteration which make them all attractive and are features of persuasive writing so the audience will be persuaded to read the features. There are lots of words that appear in the semantic field of heavy metal such as ‘brutal’, ‘angular’, ‘futuristic’ and ‘thrash’ which are obviously appealing to heavy metal fans because they use these words in everyday life and so will feel comfortable with the magazine.
Overall look – The contents page itself is very small and not eye-catching at all, it only takes up half a page and actually isn’t as prominent as the article that is on the other half of the page because the article has a black background whereas the contents section has a white background. The only thing that I think is effective about the contents is the fact that the names of the bands and artists are bold and prominent and therefore eye catching.
Text/picture ratio – The contents section of the page is very text heavy and the pictures are not at all eye catching. The headings are the most prominent part and this is because they are famous artists names and so will be attractive to anyone reading this magazine that is interested in the genre of music.
Fonts – The font used for all of the headings is a serif font and is gothic looking. It has also been made to look distressed and worn out as though it has been beaten. This is linked to the music genre of heavy metal because a lot of the logos for bands in this genre look old and ruined and so this becomes associated with that genre and then appealing to the target audience. Also, the headings themselves are a lot bigger than the other writing on the page and so they catch the readers eye immediately and will make them want to read the magazine because they are names of famous bands and artists within heavy metal.
Double page spread:
Colour scheme – The colour scheme of these two pages is the same as the contents page and the rest of the magazine. It is dark with the three main colours of black, red and white with some yellow in it. This is all typical of a music magazine and works well because the colours all stand out against each other.
Photography – There is one large image used as the background over these two pages and it is a poses shot on location showing all the band members looking serious on the roof of a skyscraper, the image is very dark and so fits in with the colour scheme and the dark image that heavy metal portrays. There are a few smaller images down the right hand side of other similar bands but the images are all similar to the background image. I think this kind of image is appealing to heavy metal fans because they like angry, serious music and so a bright and happy image would not be appropriate.
Writing style – The body text is split into small paragraphs however it is still one large bit of writing which does not necessarily look appealing to read. However the tone is colloquial and friendly and the use of subject specific lexis such as ‘djent’ and ‘electronica’and so will make the reader feel comfortable reading it whereas a serious tone would make them not want to read it at all. However I find it interesting that no pull quotes have been used in the body text because without them it just looks like one big section of text and could be viewed as boring and unappealing.
Overall look – Overall this double page spread is very appealing, the dark image in contrast to the large white heading and the different sections highlighted in red make the page neat and clear and east to navigate around. The colours and images all fit well into the heavy metal genre and I think this page has been done well. The drop capital used at the beginning of the body text is very large and very bold so will attract the readers attention and will draw them into reading the body text.
Text/picture ratio – I think the percentage of the two pages dedicated to each pictures and text is about equal however there are only a few pictures compared to the amount of text, one of the pictures is just very large. It’s more appealing to the target audience to have equal amounts of text and images because they are young so don’t want a page full of text to read but old enough to be able and want to read something substantial.
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