Metal Hammer Evaluation

The title 'Metal Hammer' itself suggests that the magazine belongs to the metal music genre which immediately makes me think of highly energetic bands with guitars whilst trashing the stage. This stereotypical view immediately comes into my head due to the ways that media institutions have put these music artists across to the public. The title is located at the top of the page and is placed as the first layer on the document which therefore allows pasrts of the text to be coered by other images on the front cover. This is one of the charecteristics that many other magazines use such as SFX and Kerrang.

Just like the Kerrang magazine, Metal Hammer has become such a well established magazine and therefore uses the same technique as others as their regular readers and the rest of their target audience will automatically understand and distinguish which magazine they are looking at.

The colour red which is used for the text automatically signifies blood to the reader which is stereotypical of the nature of the music genre, as metal bands often include violence in their music production and in shows by trashing the place up and breaking their instruments.

The use of red colour stands out against the dark background and I also noticed the designer used the opposite technique for the ‘thrash’ text used at the bottom of the page. This helps to clearly distinguish the text from the rest of the page and keeps the readers engaged.

The main image on the front page is another thing point that reflects the social characteristics of the metal music genre and its audience, the motorbike suggests that this is the vehicle the artists used which in turn has had an effect on his target audience as it is clearly visible that many mature metal music lovers own motorbikes along with black jackets. Again the choice of costume and colour reflects the ‘dark’ music produced by these artists which is also similar to the artists which is similar to the music produced by grunge bands.
The stature and pose of the artist suggests that they are ready to speed off on their motorbike as the position of the vehicle is grounded with one wheel in the air. The facial expression on the artist shows that he is in an aggressive mood, similar to the mood that is shown by the metal artists whilst performing, the evidence behind my hypothesis of the mood of the artist is based on the adrenaline fuelled performance metal artists provide on stage by their actions such as smashing instruments up and their highly energetic jumping on stage.

The main headline ‘The resurrection of… Megadeth “im pi**ed off and angry again”’
Is placed in the centre of the page and in bold which suggests that this is the main text that should catch the eye of the reader, the font style compliments the music genre and works well to create an orthodox metal feel to the front cover. The metallic colour used also reflects the genre and creates a 3 dimensional feel to the text.
Due to the way the text has been written, it automatically suggests to the reader that there is an interview inside as the artists has been quoted. The use of ** disables the chances of inappropriate audiences such as young children being exposed to explicit language as the magazine may be distributed at a news agents which caters to many people to meet their needs.