Opera Now and Kerrang! Covers Analysis

Every magazine cover is designed to appeal to its audience so that they will buy it and make money. This cover is no exception and it appeals to its audience in a number of ways. By looking at these ways we can work out who the magazine is aimed at.

Immediately the first thing we see is the main image of the opera singer mid-song. Along with the masthead ‘Opera Now’ and selling line ‘The World’s Leading Opera Magazine’ the magazine has already established its target audience ad the type of people that are likely to go to the opera. These people are usually B, A, or higher in the socio economic scale and this is reflected in the cover of the magazine. There is also only one image on the cover, this suggests an emphasis on content over images and also connotates a more mature audience. The font is crisp and clean with small serifs, which adds a feel of class to the magazine. The audience is assumed to be wealthy because of the price of the magazine is fairly high but well within the norm of magazines with the same target demographic. The colours of the cover are also an indicator to toward the target audience. The magazine also has a distinct colour scheme. The colours deep blue-purple and a rich orange are colours usually associated with wealth and the upper classes too, thereby supporting the already established statement of the wealth of the audience. So we can definitely see the target of this magazine from a few simple observations.

Despite the obvious audience it still has many of the codes and conventions of a magazine, some of which I’ve talked about (main image, masthead, selling line, price, and a distinct colour scheme). It has features a couple other conventions of a magazine like the barcode, freebie, dateline. It also has multiple cover lines and a main cover line that stands out against the rest using a different font. The role of these is to attract the reader by giving them a teaser of what’s inside. If it is an article that they are interested in then they are more likely to buy the magazine because of it. This is yet another indication of the target audience because the magazine will study them and work out which articles they will read and which ones to feature on the front page.

In conclusion this is a very typical magazine with a very precise target audience. It seems to cater and attract it's audience very well and follows a lot of the codes and conventions of a magazine (main image, masthead, few colours, selling lines, freebies etc.) of this type very well.

The second magazine cover is from 'Kerrang!' magazine and is a very different style to the 'Opera Now' magazine. This is because of two things: the music genre and the target audience. The audience of is probably between the ages of 14 and 20 with a background of C1 and C2. The first and perhaps the biggest difference between the magazine and 'Opera Now' is the informal, Rock 'N' Roll feel of the magazine that is used to attract its audience. The font and positioning of the text both in the masthead and the cover lines have an informal and thrown together look. This style is synonymous with the supposed lifestyle and fashion of the target audience and it used to make the magazine appeal to them. Slang terms like 'WTF' and 'booty' enforce the informal element to the cover and are terms that the reader will be familiar with. The man in the main image of the rock star holding the guitar is an idol the audience will instantly recognise and be drawn in by.

Although 'Kerrang!' is aimed at a completely different audience to 'Opera Now' they both follow the same codes and conventions of a music magazine (masthead, cover lines, price, dateline etc.). However, because 'Kerrang!' has much more going on, it has some that aren't present in 'Opera Now'. For example it has many images to draw in the audience and emphasise the cover lines, it has a lot of free things included with the magazine compared to the other one, and it also has more selling lines that are in random places dotted around the magazines’ cover which fit in with the style of it.

In conclusion ‘Kerrang!’ magazine does a great job of appealing to its target audience and, like the previous magazine, follows many of the codes and conventions of a typical music magazine, despite the pungent differences in style, genre and audience.