The first magazine is simply titled, 'Listen', this connotes a simplistic style of music associated with this lifestyle where the music comes first, it is there to be listened to and that is what the readers will do.
The design is very plain in black and white with the only colour coming from the Masthead, which is in a thin yellow font, as well as the thin information bar on the left hand side, which is also coloured yellow. This style of design is connoting simplicity once again and let's the audience focus solely on the main sell.
The black and white design is connoting a more 'old fashioned' approach to classical music as opposed to the new, younger audience focus that is being pushed by the media to create more revenue from wider audience sales.
The cover only has 4 coverlines and straplines which is relatively few in number compared to other magazines in this genre, this tells us that these articles are going to be very detailed and informative to fill a magazine. This also focuses our attention on the main sell once again and carries the air of simplicity further throughout the design.
The main icon is a picture of a rather grand looking man sat in a full suit, smoking a cigar with his legs crossed. The room he is sat in has a window looking into an adjacent room with a grand piano in the centre. Smoking a cigar connotes that he is a high class gentleman, the suit and way he is sat (legs crossed) promotes this idea of a high class member of society. The piano in the background clearly gives the reader the impression that this man is the owner/player of the piano. This icon plays up to the traditional way of thinking about classical music, that is is the music for the higher classes and not for working class people. Working class public would not have worn suits or sat smoking a cigar, sat in this way.
I like the simplistic design of this magazine and will hopefully be taking a similar approach to my magazine. I will not, however, be portraying classical music in this fashion, I do not believe it is only the music for higher classes so will be trying to create a wider audience profile when designing my own front cover.
This magazine is named 'Music' and is a BBC magazine. The very broad title suggests that the magazine is not fully directed on classical music but upon reading the coverlines and straplines it is clear to the reader that classical music is the agenda targeted by the BBC in this magazine. The main image of a man wearing a tuxedo with a conductors baton posing in an animated fashion also connotes that he is standing in front of a full orchestra which is commonly associated to classical music.
The colour scheme is quite plain and mainly black and white, this connotes sophistication and a 'no-frills' approach to the music. The black and white theme also says something about the age group they are trying to get the attention of, if they were trying to integrate a much younger age group into classical music they would have made the front very flamboyant and attractive to look at with many different colours, by not doing this they have sent a message to an older age group connoting that the type of person who would read this magazine doesn't need to have bright colours all over the page to be able to read it. This also connotes an expected higher average intelligence of reader, making the magazine more exclusive and aimed at a higher class in society.
This magazine has more coverlines and straplines than the one above, I like the idea of keeping a level of sophistication with a simple colour scheme whilst also having a lot of content information shown to the reader. I think perhaps the magazine above looks slightly too bland and would not attract enough readers to be successful. Both the magazines have a very simple colour scheme in common and I think I will use this feature to create a sophisticated look but will be using more coverlines than 'Listen', probably about the same amount as 'Music' have used.
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