SimilaritiesThe Front Cover

On the front covers of all three magazines, there are large images which gives us an instant impression for who the magazine is directed towards, such as within Kerrang! it is focused on people who like Rock, where as the Top of the Pops magazine is more directed towards females.

The masthead of all three magazine are very large and stand out, this grabs the audience’s attention instantly making them know what magazine they are looking at the first time they see it.

All the magazines use cover lines to tell the audience what is inside the magazine. The magazine use different colours to make certain things stand out more to the audience suggesting they are more important.

The Front Cover

All of the magazines have a colour scheme rather than using a large range of colours.

Similarities

the Top of the Pops uses one specific colour which is Pink which is related to its target audience which is females as we often relate the colour pink to be more feminine.

Kerrang! Magazine uses black, red and white.

The DJ magazine uses red, blue, black and white.

The Front Coverincentives are used on the front of the Kerrang! Magazine and the DJ magazine, such as the Kerrang magazine uses a poster to try and attract it’s audience telling them if they get this magazine then they will receive a special poster. This is the same for the DJ magazine, however, instead it uses a free CD for the audience to try out and because it is free, the audience will most likely get it as people enjoy getting stuff which is free.

All the magazine uses different backgrounds for their cover lines to try and make them stand out also, such as Kerrang! Uses a blue background to try and draw the audience’s attention, and the Top of the Pops uses yellow, which is a bright colour and stand out to the audience.

Similarities

DJ – Contents Page

Top of the Pops – Contents Page

Kerrang! – Contents Page

SimilaritiesContents Page

Within the contents page, all three magazine use images to get the reader to know which are the more important pages. The magazines have a page number next to the image, which is the same format within all three magazines. They also have less important pages going around the outside of the images and are less noticeable than the images.

The magazines also use different font styles to make some pages stand out more specifically than the others by the use of words being bold or in a different colour.

The Top of the Pops magazines and the Kerrang magazine both show pages from their magazine to try and get the audience to know which pages are better to look at first than others.

The Top of the Pops magazines and the Kerrang magazine both continue their colour scheme from the front page which suggest it is a house colour.

DJ – Double Page Spread

Top of the Pops – Double Page Spread

Kerrang! – Double Page Spread

SimilaritiesDouble Page Spread

Within the double page spreads on the magazine, there is a lot of information for the audience to read, so this shows that the target audience must have a specific interest about the topic.

All three magazines, Kerrang!, Top of the Pops and DJ magazine, all use different images across the double page spread to keep the audience interested and make the magazine look more interesting rather than plain.

Both the Kerrang! and the Top of the Pops magazine both use a colour scheme of black and red throughout the double page spread, using red to make more important things stand out more than the large bodies of text.

The DJ magazine and the Kerrang! magazine have quotes in the bottom left of the page which are quite large and is noticeable suggesting they are more important and draws the audience in.

DifferencesThe Front Cover

Also the type of language which is used on the front cover is very different again, as the Kerrang! magazine uses a phrase “Heavy F**king Metal” which tells us instantly the target audience for this magazine will be people who are more mature rather than young children. However, the Top of the Pops magazine has “Omg” which is used by many young people. This again tells us instantly the target audience is going to be younger people who will understand what this means, suggesting that the magazine is relying on the audience to already know.

As well as this Kerrang! uses rhetorical questions to try and draw the reader in so they are using different techniques to grab the audiences’ attention. However the other magazines do not use methods such as this. This goes against codes of conventions as the other magazines have not used this sort of technique.

The image on the front of the Kerrang! Magazine is more of a stereotype whereas the image on the front of the Top of the Pops magazine is more of an idol,. This suggests that you can be like her if you read this magazine.

DifferencesContents

Both Kerrang! and Top of the Pops carry on their colour scheme from the front page. Whereas the DJ magazine goes against this code of convention and uses a different colour scheme, thus making it stand out more significantly that the rest of the magazines.

The Kerrang! Magazine also have a body of text which is talking to the audience trying to get them to read certain pages before any others. Also because of specific language which is used within the text, it makes it look as if they are personally talking to you and are thanking you for buying this magazine. Whereas the rest of the magazines do not which challenges codes and conventions.

Within the contents page of the Kerrang! Magazine they are trying to get the audience to subscribe to the magazine by using a yellow background which makes it stand out more, and by saying “Only £5.50 a month” trying to suggest that this is not a lot of money and make it stand out. This again goes against what the other magazines have done.

DifferencesDouble Page Spread

The magazines use different ways in order to split the text up to make it easier to read and understand, such as Kerrang! use large capital letters, and is coloured red which makes the writing stand out more significantly than the rest. Whereas the DJ magazine only use sub titles to split the text up. The Top of the Pops magazine use different text boxes and have small red circles going along the outside of the text boxes, this makes its more easier to read. Some methods of splitting up the text are more efficient such as Kerrang’s method.

The type of language which is used within the large body of information is also different, such as within Kerrang! The use of the word “ Fucking” suggests that the target audience are going to be more mature and older whereas you would not find this sort of language within Top of the Pops are the target audience is younger than that of Kerrang’s

The DJ magazine does not continue through with a colour scheme within the double page spread which again goes against the codes and conventions as both Kerrang and Top of the Pops have used a colour scheme of black and red.