Music Magazine Research

I have finished making my preliminary task of a School Magazine and contents page and it is now time to begin my actual coursework! I have to produce a music magazine cover, contents page and a double page spread while showing how I have completed each section. I'm looking forward to this! 


I have been researching music magazine covers for the task set. I have chosen a model to use for my magazine cover and I have been vaguely looking at pop, indie and modern pop artists, as my model is a seventeen year old girl with platinum blonde hair. I would like the shot to be eye-catching and bold. I have been researching reasonably young women who are mainstream artists.

Here are the first few magazine covers I found:

Gwen Stefani is presented here in black and white with a chalky background. I really like this cover the only thing is, I'm not sure about the colour scheme.. I would like my model to be facing the camera as I feel this image  would look better on a contents page or along with other images on a double page spread. However, the shape of the models face and styling are really interesting, I'd like to incorporate a strong style into my own work.

Florence (Florence and The Machine) is presented here boldly and this image is so striking I love it! The brightness of her hair contrasts with the paleness of  her skin, I think the image works so well for a music magazine cover. She has a certain attitude to her look and I like this. I would love to incorporate this type of attitude and look for my own magazine cover, especially with the contrasts of colours in this image.

'Ke$ha' is shown here with a mysterious, slightly vacant look in her eye. The colours of this magazine cover work well together, there is a constant yellow outline combined with small yellow text which contributes with her blonde hair. I like this magazine cover as this is the closest look alike to my model which I can find! She has blonde hair and blue eyes, much like my model so the colour themes are quite useful for my situation. I will take this into consideration, and research some more music magazine covers with artists such as Ke$ha or others which have blonde hair and a simple look, such as Ellie Goulding.

This cover of Amy Winehouse is very simple, yet really eye-catching. The back ground is just stone grey which helps to focus on the model, the contrast between her hair colour and pale skin is so evident it makes the cover look so impacting. I would like to incorporate the simpleness of this design into my own magazine cover, I do not want mine to be very busy and full of cover, I would like it to have a set colour theme just like this does.