Font

Fonts are extremely important for magazine titles. The font has to express a lot without being too hard to read or taking over imposing. The title has to be memorable by portraying an original message however, it also has to be timeless and everlasting. I studied magazine titles and focused on the advantages and similarities and also on the defaults or conforming of the titles making them less recognisable. It became a difficult balance between standing out and becoming too unusual it wouldn't be recognised or noticed as a music magazine.
I looked at 2 successful magazine titles and 2 music magazines that haven't been as successful and studied the reasons for this.

Firstly, I looked at one of the most successful music magazines, NME. I thought this title must be effective because of the success the magazine had experienced. Looking at the title, I can see it conforms to the colour theme of music magazines. Most titles of music magazines have the red, black and white colour theme. This suggests that the content of the magazine is more important than the title and does the talking because the title doesn't really imply anything. The colour red is usually used as it connotes rebellion and attitude. Furthermore, the colour theme, red and white can be associated with England making the readers feel they can probably relate to the magazine more as the readers are generally British.

Then I looked at the very well-known magazine, "Kerrang!". On the Kerrang! website they said that they discuss music genres such as "Rock, goth, metal, punk, thrash, classic indie, unsigned bands". This font really suggests that the music is different, hard, and perhaps loud and messy. The "crack" in the letters connotes danger and carelessness. This does link to the music genre which is hard metal, punk and thrash. Also, like NME, the colour is plain, white and black. This suggests again that the inside does the talking. However, I think that font isn't as convenient as the NME title, which is timeless. Although the Kerrang! title does present the music genre the magazine is based on, it is very limited. For example, if they wanted to broaden or narrow the music genres the title might not fit with the new genre.

I then looked at a classical music magazine title. The font of this title is sophisticated and simple. This does link to classical music. It also attracts the typical listeneres of classical music as it is elegant. I think this title does not stand out at all, although it does suit the magazine it does not have anything individual about it which is probably why it isn't as successful as it could be. Furthermore, the colour is not memorable either, these reasons are why the magazine does not stand out. The colour is dull and does not give the reader any message.

Finally, I looked at the magazine, Music Box. It is a magazine featuring reviews, music news, tour dates, interviews, streaming audio and video, and more. It covers all different types of music. I find this title to be quite unproffesional. This font looks to complicated. This might be because the title is so long but I believe the font of "Exploring the world of music" to be unproffesional. This is probably one reason why the magazine is unsuccessful. However, the colour scheme is eye-catching and original.

In conclusion, it is a very hard balance between getting something that stands out and something that will be known as a music magazine that fits my genre. I then went on to look at different fonts I could use for my magazine front cover using the information I found here.