Rock Sound Front Cover Analysis

This is the front cover of Rocksound magazine. Rocksound is a monthly magazine aimed at 16-24 year olds although there are readers from younger and older age groups. I wouldn't say that it has a 'niche' market as such, seeing as it covers quite a wide range of music, even though the name of the magazine suggests it only focuses on rock music. Rocksound is slightly larger than A4 in size, so it has quite alot of space to play with, but as this is the front cover, they can't really afford to waste much of it, which is something you can see they are aware of from this cover in particular.

To start, the main image takes up the majority of the space which means that they actually don't have much space left to waste, and after adding in the info strip at the top of the page and the Magazine title, the front cover is rather full. They have all males in the cover photo, which is quite common for this magazine.

The title of the main article; 'WE REDICT A RIOT', is in large white writing so it stands out over the image, as most of the clothing worn in the photo is dark. The writing appears to be 'smashed' like a mirror when it has been broken, which fits with the 'RIOT' part of the title. It also fits with the image, the fact that the men are all holding things commonly associated with riots and violence; a baseball, a broken bottle, a megaphone, a brick and a chain. They are also all pulling rather 'aggressive' faces which also fits with the 'RIOT' part of the title. Alot of the front cover actually compliments the main article title; from objects and facial expressions in the photo to other words used, such as 'rampage', and the use of the exclamation mark and the 'smashed' writing. All of this reflects the 'bad boy' image that these bands all pride themselves in having, which appeals to teenage girls because they find it attractive and teenage boys because they aspire to be like the people in these bands one day. As they all play a very similar style of music, the image of the bands is very similar, and this appeals to the wider audience of the magazine because they may only see one face that they recognise on the cover but if they see other people with a similar image associated with them on the cover then they will buy the magazine because they want to find out more about the band and their music, so this is also good for the band as it may increase their fanbase. They have probably all been grouped together on the front cover because they are playing a gig or festival together, and Rocksound have done an article on it.

On the front cover, there are three main fonts used; the main title font (which is also used for most of the other writing on the cover), a handwriting style font, and the 'smashed' font.