Specific Cover Research

‘Billboard’s magazine cover is one of my favourite covers. This is because they never have the same colours or design at the front. Billboard is an international news weekly magazine devoted to music and the music industry. This is also one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognised music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly base. As you can see with the pictures above, even though they use different models and different colours each week, they have a similar layout.

This is how I wish to lay out my music magazine. I’d like to have my model at the front with the title of it above them and then the writing about what is in the magazine around the edges of them.

However, I do not like the way they have enabled the model to cover up the title as it is hard to read. I also think that there is too much small writing on the cover so it seems to look a bit over crowded and difficult to read.

‘Q’ magazine is another one of my favourite music magazines when it comes to layout and display. This magazine is a popular music magazine which is published monthly in the United Kingdom. The founders of this magazine, Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs. This magazine was first published in October 1986, setting itself apart from much of the other music press with monthly production and higher standards of photography and printing. In the early years it was sub-titles ‘The modern guide to music and more’. Originally, it was called ‘Cue’ but the name was changed so that it wouldn’t be mistaken for a snooker magazine. Another reason was that on ‘Q’s 200^th edition, due to it being a single-letter title, it would be more prominent on newsstands.

The reason for why I like this magazine is because I like the way they don’t cover their title like‘Billboard’ magazine does. I also like the way they have done a close up shot of the faces of the model to be able to sense the attitude they are trying to give off. I also like the way they have added shapes on the magazine to make it seem more interesting and it grabs the viewer’s attention.

However, similar to ‘Billboard’magazine, I’m not too keen on the way the writing on the magazine has gone over the model which makes it seem to be overcrowded with small words.