What is the first thing you notice about a magazine cover on the shelves? Image or Name (Masthead)? Probably both, but the image and the name are vital design features to catching the reader’s eye and standing out amongst all the other titles on the shelves. They form an instantly recognisable BRAND.

You can see from these Mastheads how different they are in size, typography, language and tone. They are clear signs and symbols as to what the magazine is going to contain, the genre or music and therefore attractive to a certain target audience – a certain demographic. This is its BRAND IDENTITY and should be obvious from the front page of the magazine.

Masthead and Brand Identity

You will be allocated a music magazine cover from the slideshare and it is your challenge to do some research on that magazine.

Using the yougov.co.uk site and the profiles section, find the magazine and insert the profile by using the snipping tool.

Then do some research as to the mission statement of that magazine and a little about the initial impressions, images, language used on the front cover to attract the target demographic.

Use this audience segmentation sheet to see if you can allocate a certain group to the intended target audience of your magazine and explain why in your annotations.

Once you and your partner have researched the magazine allocated, annotated your slide with your findings, you must present your ideas to the class in a short 1 minute presentation: who is the magazine aimed at, what is the genre and how can you tell that from the images and words on the front cover?

12B Music Magazine Covers

12C Music Magazine Covers

12D Music Magazine Covers

You should then take a copy of your own slide which will then form part of the blog post titled: ‘Audience Profiling’.