Comparing Two Different Music Magazines

The two music magazines ‘Kerrang!’ and ‘Q’ are very different in many ways. One reason is that they appeal to different music audiences. This is because people who read Kerrang! like music genres such as rock and metal as Kerrang! only writes about those sorts of bands, whereas Q writes about many different bands which range in genres, for example Metallica to Eminem. Therefore they attract many different people, especially Q.

The designs of the two magazines are very different. Kerrang! uses lots of different fonts to make the text stand out to attract the reader’s eye. This is different to Q because they use simple fonts. This is because the readers of Q are generally more mature than the readers of Kerrang!, because Kerrang! generally attract people who are younger such as teenagers, as well as adults. The text on Q does not overcrowd the front cover, as the readers are mature enough to not be force fed the words, which is very different to Kerrang! as the text is snappy and different so it stands out to the younger generation.

The colours used in both of the magazines are very different from each other as well. Kerrang! often uses a dark background to make everything else stand out, whereas Q uses a mature colour background like gold and white. Gold will attract different people as gold can be associated with wealth, and wealthy people are older. The text colours are very different from each other as well. Kerrang! use different colours for their text as you can see from the front cover. This is so each bit of writing stands out from each other, therefore the reader will read it all and will want to carry on to read as it is eye catching.

Even simple writing such as this which is just explaining the sub-title is eye catching as it has got its own background. Therefore Kerrang! make their front cover as attractive to its target audience as it can be to make them carry on reading. However, the text in the front cover of the magazine Q very different. This is because a lot of the time they just use white, which is a simple colour to once again separate the generations and stand out to a different audience. Some of the text, however only a little bit, is in red because the background which their logo ‘Q’ rests on is red, so the red text reminds people what they are reading and therefore promotes Q.

The layout of the front cover of the two magazines can be compared as well. The magazines are similar in the fact that they both show the music artist on the front cover. This is because this tells the reader what the main focus of the magazine will be about in the issue, therefore if the reader is interested in the band or artist being advertised then they will by the magazine. Both of the magazines are also similar because the artist on the front cover is very large on the page, and they often cover a bit of the writing, as well as having writing over the top of the band or artist. The reason the magazines do this is because it once again gets across the message that the magazine will be focused on the artist shown, and also it is very eye catching for the reader. The artists are usually posed in such a way that it is eye catching as well e.g. on the front cover of Q above the man is pointing towards the reader.