At the start of the project I analysed existing music magazines such as XXL and Vibe. The use of this is that it allowed me to get an idea of how music magazines are presented and the conventions that were used to appeal to its target audience. In my case my target audience were aged 16-21. The idea as to make my magazine seem to be as real and professional as an existing successful magazine which would mean I would go along with the conventions and not try to challenge these conventions which could lead to the magazine being over the top and not professional although if done correctly the end result could be successful. The main convention that I would follow in my own magazine would be to make sure the masthead on the front page would be the largest text and stand out to appeal to my target audience and give it a clear distinction between other magazines. To gain this result I downloaded fonts from dafont.com which is a legal website that allows you to choose from a wide range of different serif and san serif fonts. The font I used was serif, I came to this decision because I wanted my magazine to have ‘gangster, hood’ appeal to it due to my magazine was based on hip-hop and rap. The font helped support this because it has an old fashioned, western look but had a feel of a rough neck tattoo style which would have been understood by my target audience. The second convention I followed was by over laying the text in front of the model and by using the right colours over the image to make the text stand out, which allowed it to have an overall more professional look and made it seem there was more effort put into the magazine.
Thirdly another convention I followed was the use of a selling line which is presented at the top of the magazine above the masthead which basically explains the focus of the magazine and how to sell your magazine with a couple words that would make a customer buy your magazine over competitors. So with this detail I created my own selling line which was: ‘everything you want from hip-hop & rap’. I chose this selling line as it was straight to the point and portrayed to the target audience that it was packed with information and would have everything they require to attract. Also I chose to place my issue date and number on the sides of the masthead that was an original idea and just helped to increase the overall appeal of the front page.
The basic conventions that we all had to follow to deliver a complete magazine were by adding a barcode, dateline, image and several cover lines. I decided to find a way of making my magazine seem unique and the way I produced this was by separating my cover lines with stars. The benefit of doing so was that it gave it a wow factor and would draw in the attention of my target audience. Attracting my target audience was the main priority as well as cover lines which gave readers a small insight into the articles they could find inside the magazine. So to become affective I would have to make them short, eye-catching and relevant to the genre of the magazine. In all magazines there is a main cover line that stands out from the rest and would have to be the selling point. I chose to make mine ‘fire in the booth’ which is centred top right of the page and has a bold red rectangle around the writing and also is the largest sized text on the page. The use of colours was a main priority and due to the fire element in the text I chose the colour red that portrays fire and danger which would grab the attention of the reader. To give the magazine a professional look I had to make sure my cover lines were spaced out around the page not conflicting with the image but not just scattered around the page, it still had to have a layout. The layout I chose was to have the text going vertically down the page on both sides but to fill the page not leaving blank spaces without cluttering the page.
The basic conventions that we all had to follow to deliver a complete magazine were by adding a barcode, dateline, image and several cover lines. I decided to find a way of making my magazine seem unique and the way I produced this was by separating my cover lines with stars. The benefit of doing so was that it gave it a wow factor and would draw in the attention of my target audience. Attracting my target audience was the main priority and so my cover lines which gave readers a small insight into the articles they could find inside the magazine. So to become affective I would have to make them short, eye-catching and relevant to the genre of the magazine. In a magazine there is a main cover line that stands out from the rest and would have to be the selling point of the magazine. I chose to make mine ‘fire in the booth’ which is centred top right of the page and has a bold red rectangle around the writing and also is the largest sized text on the page. The use of colours was a main priority and due to the fire element in the text I chose the colour red that portrays fire and danger which would grab the attention of the reader. To give the magazine a professional look I had to make sure my cover lines were spaced out around the page not conflicting with the image but not just scattered around the page, it still had to have a layout. The layout I chose was to have the text going vertically down the page on both sides but to fill the page not leaving blank spaces without cluttering the page.
The image I used for my front page of my magazine also different from both support existing magazines which use mid shots, but I challenged this and decided to make my magazine front page have a medium long shot. I made this decision because I never wanted my magazine to become just a replica, I wanted to make a slight change which shows the models body language better, which is laid back and slouched on the prop chair that also supports the genre of the magazine of rap which is rebellious
My contents page also followed conventions from anexisting magazine, which helped gain the look of a professional magazine and included the key features that you would expect to see on a contents page, such as page numbers, categories and images. My contents page was highly influenced and developed by an existing contents page from Q magazine. I developed my contents based on Q’s contents page because the ‘L’ shaped layout appealed to me, which for me was unusual and it helped it look structured and more professional. I used images that correlate to the front cover to give a sense of continuity. I also made my categories stand out so that it would gain attention from readers and also I kept the same colour scheme from the front page to keep it consistent and a sense of belonging together.
My double page spread like the others follows convention and the first convention I followed was by having my text in columns and like the example double page spread that I helped base mine on, I placed my image on the left side of the page and the main bulk of text on the right hand side of the page. I had trouble making my double page not look boring and plain, so to overcome this I had a personal profile of the model which is above the right side of his head which just states his name, age and area. I thought this was a key unique selling point of my magazine because it is unique to see this on a magazine and I think it just represents the genre of my magazine or rap and hip-hop as being unusual and creative. The main cover line also helps draw the double page away from being plain and boring with the artist name ‘Rozier’ in a large font which catches the readers eye immediately. All cover lines also share the same colour scheme as the front page and contents page that I felt just helped it have that sense of belonging with all the pages and a strict, consistent layout. Another convention followed was the use of the drop capital at the beginning of the text which just makes it that more professional and appealing to read.
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