DJ Mag Front Cover Analysis

DJ Mag is a magazine dedicated to dance/drum and bass and electronic music. The magazine is predominantly read by people who are interested in becoming DJs or are already DJs and want to catch up with the latest trends or releases.

DJ Mag has a logo which flows from one letter to another, perhaps a subtle nod to the flow of DJ sets in a club. The designer has also chosen to add a circular, almost turn-tabled shape to the logo above the J. This is representative of the target audience of DJs, referring to turntables and EPs.

The text is written in a particular font which is sans serif, making it appeal to a younger generation, and also makes to text look alot more fluid, which fits alongside general underground music styling. This font is used throughout the magazine for all mastheads, sub text, and headings giving the magazine a sense of continuity.

The bright colours used for the masthead and main heading are quite contrasted against the image, which is set in a forest and depicts a man setting a dove wild. The subtext has a slightly grey background applied to it, i think this is to make it stand out from the picture as the picture is quite dark. The styling of the text has been layered with one colour placed on top of another, i.e. Black onto yellow text.

In my opinion the photo works well as it makes you wonder who the person is, and why is he setting a dove loose? Then you turn your attention to the masthead and it explains that the man is DJ Josh Gabriel and he's just released a new album.

The way the text has been written on the cover suggests an almost religious/angelic feel as there are lots of phrases like 'Touched by the hand of god' and 'Second coming'. This is quite strange for a magazine about underground music to use religious undertones on the cover, however this simply makes it more intriguing and inspires you to read on.

There is a bar code and an issue date/number (October 08) as well as a price, Photo-credits have been included, aswell as a U.K/Overseas price. This type of 'light' magazine typically has between 120/150 pages, and DJ mag is no exception at 142 pages.