The masthead of this magazine cover is ‘Metal Hammer’. It has a very large font and bold use of colour (red) which helps it to stand out. The masthead also has fire effects coming out of the word which (again) makes the magazine stand out; however part of the masthead is place behind the main image which is common for most magazines. This unfortunately shows s certain lack of creativity. Also at a first glance you can only see the word ‘HAMMER’ but if you look closely at the ‘H’ you can see that the word ‘METAL’ is place on it. This shows the use of overlays but what’s unique is that the word ‘METAL’ looks like part of the background because of the colour scheme. The Masthead also instantly identifies the magazines target audience since the word ‘metal’ relates to heavy metal music which mainly attracts young to middle age adults (generally male) and the fire effects make the magazine seem more ‘hardcore’.

The main image used in the magazine is a close up of one of the band members of the ‘Architects’. The image takes up a majority of the background but allows enough space for all the text and teasers. The image itself is extremely well done thanks to the make used on that person; this makes him seem angry, violent, intimidating and so on (as well as having fir in his eyes). The instantly shows that they magazine is for a more adults audience and the image itself goes well with what they magazine features (heavy metal music).

There aren’t many other images used on this front cover with the expecting of a few small ones like a skull, a sign with fire on it, a guitar etc. These images are simply there to further add who this magazines target audience is and to fill in any of the empty space on the front cover. Despite being small changes they work rather well and defiantly added to this magazine overall presentation.

Specifically there are two buttons used on this front page one saying ‘DANGER DANGER!’ and the showing readers that they have the chance to win something. These buttons work well on the front cover mainly because they vary is size and colour scheme, for example: the competition button is much bigger than the danger button but is clout scheme is white and black with makes it seem rather bland where as the danger button is much smaller but consists of red, yellow and black colours which makes it stand out a lot more, so overall the differences between buttons results in a nice balance.

The colour scheme of this magazine mainly consists of red, orange black and silver (yes I said silver) the red and silver colours are use in the text and the background consist of orange and black. What this does is that on is own the background itself sticks out quite a lot but with the addition of these text colours not only do they stick out even more then also blend in with the background rather nicely and just make it seem more natural. These colours are very bold and dynamic which helps to attract is main audience since the magazine pretty much screams out to people BUY ME!!!

The front page of the magazine is very self explanatory since most of the information (teasers) about what’s inside the magazine is feature on the front page and the colour scheme and font make them easy to read and understand. 50% of the magazine is made up of these features which mean that although they are telling you what’s inside the magazine there not give everything away and there leaving enough room for the main image. All of these teaser help to attract their audience and the people buying it will known what to expect from the magazine since there is a lot of content available on simply the front cover, so they can expect a lot more inside. The magazine also features a lot of quotations which shows that they feature a lot of interesting articles about the artist they have which could further increase its popularity and presentation.

The main selling point of this magazine is arguably the main image used or the headings. The main image really shows that this is a more adult magazine as the person (who is one of the members of the band feature in the main article) in the image looks really pissed and the makeup a(s well as the fire effects) make the magazine look a lot more dynamic and slightly evil. The text is also a large selling point since it sticks out greatly and the magazine features a large amount of teaser which shows the reader what they should expect from the magazine.