Kerrang Front Cover Analysis

Kerrang was first published on 6th June 1981. The editor at the release was Geoff Barton; nowadays the magazine has a circulation of 50,000 copies in the United Kingdom.
The angle the camera has shot of the main image slightly slants up at towards the performer. This enables us to understand that this is the image that the fans would see when seeing the performer live. It also emphasises on the fact that this picture would have been taken live and that he is ‘rocking out’. The shot is a full length shot of the performer as it shows most of his body. The lighting on the main image of this front cover is yellow and points onto the performer from the right hand side as we look at the image.

Also, on the front cover of this magazine are six other images. Compared to the main image of the magazine cover these are particularly small. Below each image there is some text about the individuals in the images these are a quick summary for readers about the contents of the magazine. This enables potential buyers to see what they will be able to read about if they decide to buy the magazine.

The images of Kerrang’s magazine cover would appeal to their target audience, which I have found to be 16-25 year olds. This would be because it has lots of ‘funky’ fonts and lots of colour in the images which makes the magazine look more exciting for this target audience. The price of Kerrang is normally about £2.20; this is a reasonable and affordable price for potential readers in the target audience age range. I also noticed that all the writing on the cover of this music magazine are in capital writing.

The name ‘Kerrang’ on the cover of the magazine is written in black and white. This use of colour is very plain which prevents the name of the magazine blending in with the rest of the cover as it is full of colour. On the cover this is one main title that stands out from the rest, this is ‘100 greatest gigs ever’. This title would be the magazines main feature this time so is a lot bigger than any other information on the cover. The 100 is emphasised a lot more to enlighten you on the fact that it’s a big number of 100. Other titles on this cover are rather small in comparison which encourages the readers to be more interested in the main title that the others as it is the main article of this issue.

Throughout the front cover there have been three main colours that are used, these are black, white and yellow. The use of focusing on using three colours for the information provided is to prevent overwhelming the readers with all the colour on the cover, it also makes it look more professional. This enables the information shown on the cover to stand out from ifs very colourful background of images.