Magazine Research: Codes and Conventions

Codes and Conventions of Magazine Adverts

           The Layout of each magazine depends on the target audience that the artist is aiming at. For example Paramore’s advert was aimed at a young target audience and so the layout of the magazine seemed very busy. To a young teenage this would seem exciting and thus it would attract them to the magazine. The layout also depends on the image being presented by the artist. For example Stereophonic’s advert had an image of the band sitting on chairs at a table whilst the see swells around them and yet you can see they are calm because of their facial expressions. This presents an image of them as calm. To convey this image further the layout would be very simple so as to seem calm. This would also attract the more adult audience which they are targeting.

 The advertising of the artist and their image appears to be the most important thing on an advert even if the adverts main purpose is to advertise a CD or album. All the magazines which I have looked at all had a large image of the artist and a big bold title for their name. The image mostly takes up the whole page. These aspects of the magazine dwarf any other part of it including the image of the album in which it is it’s main purpose to advertise. The large image and their name highlighted in bold allows the advert to attract the target audience’s attention so that even if they buy the album the may still follow the artist and purchase other products in the future.

The image of the album and the information about it is not small itself but compared to the image and name of the artist is small in comparison. They are the made to be small enough so that it doesn’t take away from the main image but it is enough to get itself noticed. Also the information placed on the page is limited. The main information placed on the page is only the most vital information; what the album is, when it will be released and where the audience can find more information if they need or want it. They do this to make the advert easy to read for the consumer so that they feel inclined to read it.

The last thing that I found is that on most the magazine adverts they all had a website link written in small writing at the bottom. This is placed there to encourage the target audience to research further into the artist.