Brand Identity of Rock Sound and NME

Rock Sound

Rock Sound is a music magazine for people who enjoy listening to rock and/or metal music. They tend to change the colours on the front cover in each issue but the colours they use the most are red, which, black and yellow; these are the house colours of the magazine. These colours give the magazine a brand identity, and help people to recognise the magazine when they see it on the shelf in the shop. The masthead of the magazine (pictured above) is a banner masthead. It's in a bold, sans-serif font which makes it stand out to the reader. They don't usually use any of the house colours in the masthead; they change the colours in each issue depending on the colour scheme on the page. Part of the masthead is usually covered by a bit of the main image (you can see an example of this in the picture below). This is because the magazine is so well known that they don't need to show all the masthead for people to recognise it.

This magazine is targeted at a younger audience because most of the colours they use are bright. However, they do use a lot of the colour black (usually in the background), which is usually associated with this genre of music as it is a heavier colour. The language that is used is informal, if they were targeting this at older people they would use more formal language. They tend to have younger and newer bands which teenagers mostly like in the magazine, such as Young Guns, Paramore, and Bring Me The Horizon. However, they do have a couple of bands that are older, so older people can still feel free to read the magazine, such as Killing Joke, Cradle of Filth, and Soundgarden.

Looking at Rock Sound i can tell that it isn't a very serious magazine. There are some serious parts to it, but the target market doesn't particularly want to read a completely serious magazine as they would find it boring. Teenagers prefer something that will entertain them and make them laugh, but still give them the latest news about their favourite bands. This also fits in with their brand identity, as they have a reputation for being quite fun.

Throughout the magazine there are various advertisements for gigs/events that will appeal to the target market. Also, they have a specific gigs/events page near the back so the readers can find out about upcoming events. This gives them a brand identity as people will know them for the place to find out about what gigs are going on.


Most of the typography on the front cover are bold and simple, but some of it is a fun font that shows it's not all serious; this also helps it appeal to the target market more.

NME
NME is a music magazine for people who like listening to indie/rock music. The house colours of NME is red, white and black. They use their house colours a lot more compared to Rock Sound. If you look at the front cover that is pictured below, you can see that most of the page is red, black and white; the only other colour that is on the page is a tiny bit of yellow. The colours in the NME masthead is the house colours, it's also simple and easily recognisable. When someone is looking out for NME in the shop shelves, they will always look for the red, black and white one, this shows that the house colours give the magazine a brand identity that everyone recognises. On the front cover there's usually a large image of a band member/band members to draw people's attention in. The subjects in the images are usually using direct address, which makes it more personal and eye-catching.

I would say this magazine has a slightly wider target market than Rock Sound; the target market is probably teenagers and young adults (up to about the age of 25). I can tell this because they use bright colours and informal language, but they've still made it look sophisticated and use a simple layout.



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