Magazine Newsstand Task

WHSmith provides the most notably popular magazines in the UK, although if a certain magazine isn’t available in the store, it is possible to subscribe to them or to request an issue be made available for you. Popular music magazines of all types of genres are available such as Rolling Stone, Uncut, Opera Now, Pianist, Mojo, Kerrang!, Q, NME, Computer Music, Guitarist, Beats Magazine, and more. 

These were all positioned near the Photography magazines and the Motoring magazines. The magazines are all sorted out according to genre/interest.


I noticed that the Hip hop magazines have bolder colour schemes on the cover, such as bright reds and bright yellows. In contrast, rock magazines such as Rock Sound and Kerrang! have a lot going on their cover pages, such as skylines, images and loads of teasers and coverlines. 

Software music magazines such as Future Music, Music Tech and Computer Music have no cover star, but have an image(s) of electronic software, computers and such. The music magazines either had an image of the instrument the magazine is dedicated to (i.e. guitar, piano, drums) whilst others have an image of a famous musician whose main instrument is that.

 Teen magazines (for girls) have very crowded cover pages, with multiple images, bright colour schemes and usually offer free posters. Metal and hard-core magazines used a lot of black, grey/silver and red colours.



The Rock magazines were in the middle/front at eye level, whereas the R&B and hip hop ones were further up/ at the back. The Instrument magazines were lowest on the newsstand.

 At the top were collectors or "special" magazines dedicated to certain artists such as The Beatles, Elvis Presley, etc.

I noticed that Direct Mode of Address was rarely used (with 3 being the exception) in the instrument magazines, however the majority of magazines used this. The cover star is, more often than not, photoshopped in front of the masthead.