Beatz Magazine - Issue 7

The Beatz Magazine is an informal magazine which has a main focus of mainstream music, but also contains articles on fashion and reviews. The magazine had been founded and published by a group of individuals in May 2012 for music lovers across the globe. In order to run the magazine, there are a variety of workers, from a DJ, to bloggers, graphic artists and journalists. In order to gain a large amount of income, the magazine allows advertising space to be purchased by various people, for example famous artist Katy Perry promotes her gigs and clothing brand ‘Trend Star’ promotes their products.

The front page of the magazine consists of an image of a famous artist, Wiz Khalifa, also known as a cover star. The cover star is in the centre of the page thus drawing attention; this effect is also present with the text which is used to inform the audience about the contents of the magazine. The cover star has been photographed from the head to the waist, this shot is known as a close-medium shot, and it has been taken in front of a blank background/wall. The cover star is seen wearing various accessories including; bracelets, rings, sunglasses, a scarf and a watch. There are also many tattoos which are visible on the cover star. The magazine uses a masthead to present the name of the magazine to its readers, it also uses a cover line in order to tell the readers about the article written about the cover star. The text which is visible on the front cover follows a 3 colour scheme; black, white and red. The information which is presented on the front cover talks about what will be available to read in the magazine, the information includes an article on the ‘Beatz Awards’, ‘Top 10 Artists to Watch’ and more. Furthermore the front cover displays the issue number, date and the company website.

The magazine’s contents page takes up 2 pages which is quite common within magazines of all genres. The 2 pages tell the reader about what kinds of articles can be found within the magazine and what pages they can be found on; this includes articles on fashion and artists. The word ‘Contents’ is written in the largest text size on the page in order to tell the reader that they are on that specific page, where as the text used to tell the reader about the articles is much smaller, despite this the article title is in bold but the article description is in an ordinary font. To make the page look more organised the writers have separated the text into columns, the columns are titled; ‘Regulars’, ‘Features’, ‘Interviews’ and ‘Editor’s Picks’ which could aid the reader to choose what they want to read about. The page presents the reader with the magazine name, magazine website and the page number.

The double page spread is focused on famous artist Wiz Khalifa, and consists of 2 large images and one column of text. The 2 images are of the artist in 2 different outfits which could represent different sides of the artist. One image is of him in a smart and sophisticated outfit and the other is of him in a more rebellious and free-minded outfit. Within the first image he is seen wearing a suit accompanied with smart shoes, a fedora, scarf and a variety of accessories, within the second image he is seen wearing an over-studded jacket which has many badges attached to it, white tee, black trousers and a pair of black boots. The text which accompanies the two images is a continuation of a Q&A which was begun on the previous image it has been positioned in the middle of the 2 images and presented within a single column. The questions of the article are written in blue and the answers are written in black, by doing this it effectively makes the reading more easy and enjoyable for the reader as they can choose to read what they want rather than reading the entire article.  The language which is used within this article is informal as the magazine is directed at a young audience, the language used can be related to by the readers as the words which are used by the artist is also used by the audience.