F I R S T - C O V E R S - R E S E A R C H

I've been doing some research on the covers of music magazines. I have a rough idea that I want to make a music magazine that is a lot like 'Kerrang!' magazine (produced by Bauer Media) but aimed more at both genders rather than a 80:20 split of male to female audiences (roughly). The Kerrang! website has an audience profile that says 'Individually minded, independent of thought and musically experienced, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty.'. This is the exact kind of person that I want to aim at too, but both genders.

 I've also been looking at some of the covers of Kerrang!. The design of the cover seems to have the same house style but the look of the cover changes every week. Some weeks the cover of the mag has cluttered images and titles all over it, to do with bands, interviews and releases. However, other weeks, the cover has slightly less clutter, and it appears to look more sophisticated and fresh. Some how I think that the clutter makes the magazine look more masculine. Here are some of the pictures of the magazine covers that I like:

All of these images were found on google and can (probably) be found on http://www.kerrang.com/ , the official Kerrang! website.

 I prefer the colour scheme of the first images I showed, the cover with Lucana Coil's lead singer's picture on, however, black and red still feels very masculine, and it's also the main colour scheme of the music magazines 'NME' and 'Metal Hammer'. The aim is to make my magazine similar, because of the target audience and music genre, but make sure it's in no way the same as Kerrang! and not copied at all. I still have a little while to go and a few more lessons in school before I do a first draft on the cover, so we'll see how it goes.