Music Magazine Task - Rolling Stone

'Rolling Stone' is a US based magazine which focuses on music culture, politics and popular news. It was first created by Jann Wenner in San Francisco in 1967 and has since then appealed to a wide range of people. The magazine is named after the Muddy Waters popular song - Rollin' Stone.

'Rolling Stone' features news about popular artists such as Rita Ora and Christina Aguilera but also includes information about music legends - such as John Lennon and The Beatles. This means that the magazine appeals to a wider audience as information and articles are included about a variety of different artists.

The magazine uses iconic fonts for the title of the magazine which would be recognisable to a wide range of people. The colour red of the title 'Rolling Stone' stands out against lighter backgrounds such as white or grey to capture people's attention and encourage them to take a look at the magazine's front cover, which includes a lot of persuasive writing to encourage the consumer to read it. There has been many iconic people who have been featured on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' such as Tina Turner and Jimi Hendrix and also The Beatles as already mentioned.

To the left is an image of a cover from 'Rolling Stone' from 2011 which has the front cover model as Adele - the well known artist who appeals to a wide audience. I think they have done this to encourage more people to read the magazine as Adele is a very popular artist.

As you can see, the design style of the cover is quite minimalistic with only a few features on it. The photography which has been used is a close-up image suggesting that the audience should look there first, which could explain why there are only a few features included. On other previous covers, some of the photography used has been long-shots to connote maybe that the people on the front cover have power.







The front cover styles don't seem to follow any pattern with each edition apart from the iconic title and fonts. The straplines which have been used are short and snappy, which suggests that the way the magazine is communicating to its audience is persuasive - sort of demanding that they read it. Also, with each edition, the colour scheme always matches the title's colour. As you can see to the right, the title is blue and the celebrities on the front are all wearing clothes which match this colour. This has been done to make the magazine aesthetically pleasing for the consumer, which overall would make them more likely to purchase it.

The final aspect of the Rolling Stone magazine I would like to focus on is the contents. To the left is a picture of the magazine's contents page, which still continues with the red theme from some previous covers. The imagery theme is also still continued - focusing on the Rock side of the music industry and you can see this from the main image on the page. The two main features of the magazine have been put into a type of article instead of just in a list, and this has been done to attract the reader to them first. The rest of the features are in a simple list down the left hand side of the page, continuing with the font theme and colour scheme.

Overall, the Rolling Stone magazine uses many techniques in order to attract the consumer to their product. These techniques include the way they communicate with their audience by using persuasive language, the imagery they include which catch the consumer's attention, and finally the features they include in the magazine itself, which would encourage the reader to buy another edition.