DJ Mag Analysis

Skyline
Puf
Masthea
d

Main Image

Main
Coverline

Coverli
ne

Price /
Date

Sell Lines
Barcode

Target Audience
DJ Mag compared to other DJ magazines seems to be more relaxed
and not as formal, meaning it would appeal to a younger
demographic around the ages of 15 to 25. The very bright colours
on this issue definitely support this as younger people are attracted
to more colourful and strong images. The magazine is definitely
more targeted towards males due to the nature of the content and
the way it is portrayed it is not feminine looking in the slightest.

Masthead
The masthead is a convention that is used on every magazine, and is
no expectation with DJ Mag. The logo is filled with red with a thick
black stroke around the outside, making it very bold. Due to the
masthead consisting only of the letters D and J, as well as being
slightly overlapping each other, it makes the masthead look more of
an emblem than just text that has been stylised. This makes it more
efective at staying in the readers minds and therefore more efective
at creating a brand. Just above the J is a ring to represent a vinyl or
deck of a DJ controller, making the masthead more stylized and also
further portraying that it is very much a electronic music magazine.

Main Image
The main image of this issue is somewhat diferent to the
convention on electronic music based magazines, due to how busy
and colourful it is as they are normally very minimalist. However it
is fitting with the artist featured in the image as he usually
performs with a tribal looking face mask, with is very bright and
colourful. The colours of his face mask are carried out on the
background with splashes and shapes filled with all of these
diferent colours. From a far, regardless of if the magazine is
recognised as DJ Mag, this image will attract anyone due to how
appealing it looks increasing the potential for sales.

Main Coverline
On this issue of DJ Mag, the coverline is very striking to the eye. It
features a custom, tribal looking font that ties in with the tribal
looking colours and main image. This font is only used on the artists
name, which highlights it from the rest of the main coverline which
just uses a smaller, sans serif font. The use of a blue stroke with
yellow fill, combined with a drop shadow, makes it stand out on the
very bright a colourful background. It links to the main image like
convention suggests, and because of the way it is styled the
audience wouldnt even have to read what the text says before
knowing that it was to do with the main image.

Coverline
All of the coverlines follow the same formatting pattern in terms of
size and how bold they are. The main part of the coverline is bold to
highlight it and grab the attention of the reader primarily, whereas
the part below it is not bold and smaller to allow a slightly more
detailed description of the coverline one the reader is already
interested. Due to the very busy and colourful background image,
the colour of the coverlines change so allow them to stand out
more. However all of them have a solid colour fill on them which
highlights the whole coverline and makes them stand out from the
background, the text then contrasts the fill colour creating very
easy to read coverlines.

Barcode & Price/Date

The convention on the barcode and price/date is followed to allow
the magazine to be purchased and give it something to be
organised by. It is placed in the bottom right corner of the
magazine, where it normally should be to fill up blank space. The
positioning also means it doesnt detract any attention away from
anything else featured on the front cover, which is far more
important for the reader than the barcode and price/date that is
until they are persuaded to purchase the magazine and then want
to know how much it costs.

Sell Lines
The sell lines have been formatted in a very similar manner to
coverlines, in the way they have a colour fill behind them and the
text a diferent colour. The text colour doesnt contrast to the
background as much this time however, and this is so it doesnt
detract too much attention away from the rest of the cover as it is
not a main selling point, however it still is an important convention
of a magazine so does still need to be able to be read clearly. The
reader can get a good idea in a very short amount of text what else
is going to be featured in the magazine along side with the featured
articles.

Puf
Pufs are conventionally used to highlight something, usually a
special ofer or deal that is a one of a kind and needs attention
being drawn to it. In this case however it is used to draw attention,
using a circle shaped yellow star, to the type of issue it is Best of
British. It acts a main selling point for the magazine as the
audience can guess what sort of artists are going to be featured
and if that interests them then they will want to purchase the
magazine.

Skyline
Conventionally, the skyline is used to summarise the sort of
categories of article featured in the magazine, however this time it
is used to promote a free CD something usually featured in a puf.
It is also not highlighted in any form like the coverlines are,
meaning it doesnt stand out as much from the background which is
peculiar considering it is meant to be selling something. However
what is good that its positioning is right next to the masthead,
meaning when the readers attention is drawn to the masthead,
which is really easy to be seen, they will also notice the skyline and
its ofer will be seen.

Sub
Heading

Heading

Secondary
Image
Articles

Main Image

Page
Number
Rule of Thirds

Heading
The header of the contents page doesnt follow convention overly
much, as it doesnt include a date line or the masthead, however it
still does include a heading. The heading is simply there to show
the reader what page theyre on so they know if they want to read
the information on it. It doesnt come across as too powerful in the
way it is formatted, with its light font and light grey fill combined
with a grey bar going all the way through it horizontally, but it
means the reader doesnt get distracted by the heading and can
concentrate more easily on the rest of the page.

Sub Heading
The main body of the contents page is split up with sub headings
that summarise the sort of article that lies between it. There is a
featured sub heading that includes all of the more important
articles including the one that was featured on the front page. Then
there are other sub headings that categorise the not so important
articles into sections such as music and tech. They are each
formatted in the same pattern, using the same fonts and font
colour, however each heading has a diferent coloured box behind it
which not only highlights the text but allows the reader to easily
distinguish between each type of heading so that the diferent
categories are not confused with each other .

Page Number
Page numbers are an important convention of contents pages, and
come in many diferent sizes and styles throughout the whole page.
For the page numbers linked to images, they are much larger and
bold than the others. For all of the other page numbers that are
linked to articles through text, they are much smaller in a lighter
weighted font. This helps with the overall efect of the images
standing out more to the reader as they are more attractive and
appealing, especially over text. Then for the text based article
descriptions, they are much less noticeable to not detract any
attention away from the more important, image described articles.

Articles
The way articles are formatted in this contents page is diferent
depending on where it is categorised by the sub headings. If
categorised under the features heading, each article has a main
part and a sub part. The main part is larger, bolder and italic to
grab the attention of the reader initially, then the sub part is much
more small so that more information can be added once the reader
is already interested. This is only used on the features category as
they have the main articles of the issue and want them to be
noticed before any of the other, not so important articles are.

Main Image
The main image is a convention of a contents page to link it to the
front cover, as well as describing an article in the easiest way
possible for the reader . Although it is a diferent image, it is still of
the same person and continuing what was being advertised on the
front page into the insides of the magazine. It is the largest image
on the page, to attract the most attention as it is the main selling
point of the magazine and therefore the best article for readers to
view. It also acts as a way of splitting up all of the text featured on
the page into what looks like smaller sections, so that the reader
doesnt get put of by the amount of information available on the
contents page.

Secondary Image
Secondary images are used for the same purpose that main images
are used for to try and describe articles in the easiest way
possible for the reader. The still only are used for more important
articles, as the ones with pictures attached to them will usually be
seen first and therefore will want to have the best information on
them. The secondary images have a whole column of the rule of
thirds to themselves so that they dont get confused with anything
else on the page and so that when the reader is attracted to that
side of the magazine, they are going to be able to view all of the
images and are more liked to visit all of the more important articles.

Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is a convention of a contents page to split it up
equally into 9 sections that highlight focus points on the page, from
the readers point of view. In this contents page, it is mainly split
into 3 columns, left is for featured articles, middle is for less
important articles, and right for images describing articles. This
allows focus on each section to be on that section only, allowing the
reader to fully understanding what is available. The main image is
located in the bottom left corner of the page, taking one of the
available nice sections to itself as it is so important. Nothing else
but the image is in this section, so when focus is on that part it will
entirely be on that image and dramatically increase the chance of
the reader viewing that article.

Main Heading

Sub
Headin
g
Drop
Cap

Main
Image

Article
Body

Main Heading
The main heading is a must have convention for an article, as it
allows the reader to understand what the article is about. The style
of the heading gives of an overall sophisticated feel, with its basic
sans serif font and subtle colour fill which links in with the greyish
colours of the main image. The use of the word physical in a DJ
scene is quite odd, however we learn later in the article that it is
used to show that he is a DJ that doesnt use any automatic tools
and just uses his talent which in return takes a lot of work. The
reader wouldnt understand this after just reading the main
heading, making them intrigued and wanting to read on.

Sub Heading
The sub heading is used to give more detail to the reader about
what the article is about, without actually reading the rest of the
article, so they can decide if they want to continue reading or not. It
is a popular convention as it sells the article in a persuasive manor,
meaning most of the time the reader will want to continue. It is
formatted in the same style as the main heading, except it is
smaller and uses both upper and lower case characters, which acts
a bridge between the main heading and article body to link them
together.

Main Image
The main image is a convention used on a lot of double page
spreads as it can be very large in size due to the high amount of
space which makes it very visually pleasing for the reader. The pose
of the person in the image, combined with the greyscale efect,
helps set a sophisticated feel to the overall article. He isnt directly
looking at the camera which creates mystery to what he is really
looking at, and the reader would feel it would be explained in the
article, making them want to read it. The image spreads onto the
second page a little bit, creating a flow between the two pages and
linking. The abstract shapes overlaid on top of the image travel
from the bottom left to top right of the two pages, also creating a
natural flow and taking the readers eyes from the part that will
attract their attention the most to the next most important feature.

Drop Cap
This is a convention used on most articles simply to show where the
article starts. The size of the letter W in this case stands out from
the rest of the article body, grabbing the initial attention of the
reader to then lead them on to the rest of the article.

Article Body
The article body is obviously a convention of any article, it is what
makes up the main part of an article. It is set out in a standard
fashion split up into columns so make navigating through the high
amount of text easier for the reader. It also creates a visual split in
the body, making it seem like there is less text than there is making
the reader more inclined to read it as they will not be put of by
high amounts of text.