Conventions of Front Covers Posted by Jordan Harrison , Monday 23 November 2009 at 01:07, in

Here are Music Magazine covers, I will now explain the conventions of them using LIIAR.

Kerrang!:

The masthead is strong bold and straight to the point, rebellious, this is emphasised by the cracks in the text as if its breaking the mould. The word itself fits with the genre, rock. Kerrang it sounds grungy and rock-like. The language itself is different from other magazines, like "Metallica storm the UK" - instead of simply saying "Metallica come to the UK" it makes it sound more strong, violent. Like a rock magazine, reaching out to the audience.

The kerrang font and "K!" is symbolic of Kerrang now, this is ideology, as you can see on this cover, the male in the main image is covered in tattoo's, this as well is symbolic to rock, again giving this magazine another feel of rock and connecting with the audience and the genre.

From this cover, I would say the audience that it is produced for is mainly teenagers, prominently male and possibly some older readers. This magazine gives a young rebellious feel to it, like most teenagers, they like to rebel, be different, and this is what this magazine does, creating a strong bond with the audience through this connection of attributes.

The colours and fonts, the boldness of it all brings to mind a representation of again rebellious teens, this magazine represents what these teenagers are in many ways. They could be strong, bold or different. The magazine caters for all of its readers within its selected audience, through the strong representations.

Rolling Stones:

The masthead of this is covered by the subject, in this case "Metallica". This doesn't affect that magazine in any way, because of its strong representation and symbolism. The masthead is extremely symbolic to this magazine, the style, the colour and the look, most people would recognise just a small section of the masthead. the writing is traditional, in many ways like the magazine. its elegant yet simplistic, but it works amazingly well.

The subject image is the main focus, telling us that its the main thing in the magazine, also maybe putting the genre of magazine across to the audience. This gives a classic rock magazine feel to it, not classic music but a classic magazine, of music. Well made and well put together. Also as previously mentioned, the masthead is extremely symbolic, this is why it can be covered up, even 50% covered and it will still be recognised.

From the look of this clean cut magazine, it looks like its for the more mature music magazine reader, 20+. it looks classy and sophisticated.

This magazine is represented very easily, by the logo and the masthead. All of the cover subjects are representative of the contents and usually of music. Metallica are extremely representative of rock music, but possibly the kings of Rock. Making the magazine have a sophisticated, elegant feel.