Magazine analysis 2:Kerrang

The cover
The title of this magazine is "Kerrang", the main reason that it is called this is because the name is meant to represent the noise that an electric guitar makes when it is strummed. The idea of the guitar strum sound connotes the idea that the creators of the magazine are trying to reach out to their target audience very clearly and easily from the very start (meaning the title) because their target audience is quite clearly people who are interested in the genre of rock. By linking the title to a guitar (an instrument commonly associated with rock music) they are explaining what the magazine is all about before it has even been looked at or opened.

The title/logo designed in the style of a smashed window with the crack lines running through it and I believe that this is used in order to yet again attach the title and the design to their target audience as rock is commonly know for being rather loud and aggressive which links to the idea of smashing items. The writing for the title is red and the smash lines are white because the background colour is white so these link together. The font of the title is a rather urban slanted styled font which in my opinion signifies rock and also I believe that the style of Kerrang is very similar to what you would expect to see as a name of a band on an album or cd cover and that may be what the creators are going for.
The strap line in this magazine is used to advertise an aspect of this weeks issue, the advertisement is for the 6 posters of various artists that are inside the magazine and has pictures and example of all 6 of them. The strapline also has a stamp on it which is advertising a competition inside, the competition is for the chance to win a Nando's with famous band 'you me at six' and the use of a stamp is clever as it just makes the competition stick out a b it more compared to the rest of the magazine as it is in a different format.
In this issue there is actually not a main image that sticks out over the rest simply because the main cover line of the issue takes up a large majority of the cover and so there is not room for a large image and so instead there are six small images to the sides of the cover line. These six images are of famous artists who are featuring heavily in this issue, these artists include Biffy Clyro, Bullet from my valentine, Billie Joe Armstrong, Papa roach, Mitch lucker and Blink-182. In these images all of the artists are looking towards the camera , the artists like Billie Joe Armstrong, Biffy Clyro and Mitch Lucker have rather serious facial expressions and are taken as part of a photo shoot and not in action whereas the other three artists are in action during their photos for example Bullet from my Valentine's lead singer is singing into a microphone with headphones on in his picture.

There is only one cover line on this magazine because the one that there is simply takes up too much space to fit on any more. The cover line is displaying what the main topic of this weeks issue is, this topic is "101 songs that rocked your year" and it is written in a purple, black and yellow font with a rather different style which is rather casual and looks like it is almost drawn on. By making the cover line font and style different from the rest of the front cover it allows the creator to put extreme emphasis on his topic and also by making it the only cover line there is that makes it come across as even more dominant. It is yet again a rather urbanized cover line which could be seen as a rather rock styled format which I also believe is similar to the title in regards to the fact that it is written in the style of a band name or long cover or title.
The colours of white and red are used throughout this cover, the background colour of the cover is white and this colour is also used for all the blocks on the front cover. Red is used for the titles and most of the writing on the cover apart from on the cover lines and the image notes. The idea of the basic white and red colours could be in order to ensure that nothing else on the front cover over powers the cover line which is the most important thing on this as it is advertising to the reader and the target audience what is this weeks issue and why they should read it.
The language used in this cover varies in style, there is a lot of use of rather big statement words such as "awesome" and "Massive" but the rest of the language is rather formal and descriptive when looking at the image notes as these notes need to be precise and top the point in order to get across the message quickly and easily.
I would not say that this magazine front cover look similar to many other magazine's I have seen because it is rather unique and very specifically aimed at its target audience which is the rock genre. This magazine can offer an exciting, in depth and inside look on the world of the rock industry which I believe a lot of its rivals cannot as they simply do not have the access to the resources that Kerrang does. 

Inside
There is sixty three pages and fourteen of these pages are advertisements. All the adverts in this
magazine are either for the Kerrang itself or connected to Kerrang so unlike other magazines they do not have any adverts to do with other companies and their products. There area few adverts that are trying to sell and advertise concerts and event for bands that are contracted or linked to Kerrang, as well as these there are also many adverts that are trying to get readers to subscribe to Kerrang through free gifts and discounted rates etc. The last type of adverts is adverts the ones that feature at the end of the issue and are advertising products that are directly linked to Kerrang target audience, these include t-shirts with bands names on them, wrist bands and cd's all with the theme of rock inv         olved in them in some form.

There are various different types of features in this magazine,  these include: News waking the demo's, Kerrang top charts, Feedback corner, the main topic which is "101 songs that rocked your year", the claws are out, moment of silence, lives and finally their is a large section for reviews at the end of the magazine. A lot of the features in this issue are aimed at getting inside knowledge on the thought and feelings of several artists in the rock industry, a large majority of the magazine is taken up by the main topic of the issue and the fact that this has been given the most space and pages throughout the magazine gives the idea to the reader that this is the article that should receive the most focus and is the most important.
Throughout this magazine there are fourteen double page spreads, some of them are attached to the same articles for example the main topic of the issue which has already been spoken about has four double page spreads in order to cover absolutely everything to do with tis topic in this case it must cover all 101 songs that they have listed. There are other articles like the reviews and the news that have more than one double page spreads and again this is because they want to put as much information in the issue as possible but require more than two pages because they don't want to cram it and make the magazine easy to read and not too compact.
There are some advertorials in this magazine,  one of these is when they are advertising the Kerrang tour 2014 because it does have some information on there which looks like it could be an article but then there is a lot prices and dates on there as well which causes confusion as to what category it falls into. The magazine does have a house style in some ways but not in others. Throughout almost every page there are a large amount of pictures of varying sizes which could be seen as a house style that every article contains a large amount of pictures, certainly more than most magazines do and this could be used as an idea to make the articles come across as more interesting to the younger readers. In terms of font and colour there is not particularly a house style as every article seems to have a very different font and colour scheme to others and this could be in order to make every article stand out and not get lost and became too boring to read.
I believe the image based house style is a goo idea for their target audience simply because people who are Interested in rock are rather flamboyant and extravagant people who most likely are not big supporters of text heavy articles where they have o seriously think non stop throughout the magazine so they will appreciate a few images that add a slight element of illustration to the magazine and its articles.

NME analysis front cover picture