Billboard is a country music magazine which is easily recognisable with its bold heading to its target audience. It is clear that this music magazine has a set country genre with a large full-page image of a country singer, typically dressed to suit the theme of the magazie. It would be expected that articles in the magazine would follow what the audience can see from the front cover and there would be an article involving the singer on the front cover.
It could be percieved that the target audience for the magazine will be of the 30+ age group as it is not as bright and appealing as many younger people/teenageers would expect a magazine to be be bold and eye catching. Country music is typically an older persons music and doesn't usually appeal to a younger audience.
The cover image uses a whole page and this gives the impression that the article related to the person on the front cover will be onf relevance and importance. The way the person on the cover is dressed is typical of the way country singers are expected to dress, they fall into a stereotype. The the left of the image there is a main cover line, it is in bold and stands out to the reader. It is clearly an important article within the magazine. There are three other cover lines on the front cover of this issue of the magazine and they are much smaller than the cover line.
The magazine shows the country genre and even the title is able to give it a Country feel. The title also gives the impression that the magazine is aimed at an older audience in general as well as the overall design of the front cover. There is also no slogan to the magazine and this could suggest that it has a regular readership with the same people buying the magazine. Editors of the magazine do not need to attract a new audience who appreciate other styles of music, although they may try to widen their existing audience along with including different types of music on their other front covers in order to do this.
Colours used on the front cover of this magazine seem to be quite neutral and this gives the impression that the magazine aims to be more about the music of the artist rather than colour and appearance of the front cover. Colour is shown in a couple of cover lines and also letters in the title, however the rest of the text is simply white. Text used on the cover are not large except for that of the title and also the heading of the main cover line.
In contrast to 'Billboard' country magazine, the 'Rollingstone' magazine caters for an audience with an interest for rock but also looks at other aspects and types of music along those lines. From the front cover it is clear that articles inside will be eye catching and bold to catch the readers eye. Readers who may not usually buy the magazine may be drawn to buy particualr issues due to what they can see on the front cover.
This particular magazine is likely to have a much wider audience than that of 'Billboard' magazine becuase of the different types of music it represents and as a result it is able to cater for a wider audience, although 'Billboard' does cater for other audiences as well as the country genre. 'Rollingstone' magazine is well known across the world becuase of its popular music genre, however 'Billboard' magazine has much less coverage as it only appeals in theory to one audience and therefore its range can be very limited.
This front cover also has a full page image although in this case, it has a white background. The bold, red title so well known is able to be set behind the image and yet people would still recognise it on a shelf full of other magazines. There is clearly a house theme of white, black and red and even the main image complies with this. Along the top of the cover are the names of various well known bands who are featured within the magazine and all of the text is bold, easy to read from a distance. There is a distinctive main coverline although all of the writing featured is in bold writing.
The overall design of the front cover gives a completely different sense of the readership of this magazine than that of 'billboard', it seems much more fast paced and aiming to keep its readership up by providing eye-catching stories that instantly draw people in. The overall impression given from the magazine is that they know people will want to read their latest stories given that the magazine is highly credible and has been for many years. Country magzines are much less popular and it is for this reason that many people, especially those of younger generations would be unable to recognise magazines, such as 'Billboard', as easily as they would 'Rollingstone' for example.
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