By Shantelle Bowman

At the start of my second year, I looked back at the conventions that had to be included in my constructions. I have since, learnt different skills in order to enable me to identify what needs to be included in my work. In terms of my front cover, I have a masthead which shows the main focus of the magazine and I use that as my logo throughout my work. The name I chose which was ‘Haway’ links in with creating a regional magazine as it is a word dialect that is used in the North East (my hometown). The design was inspired by national magazines but the name was influenced by my region. Other small conventions I included was the issue number, barcode and price. These are essential for a front cover, but I made them small so that they aren't the main focus. I think they blend in well with the layout and make my magazine look professional. Some regional magazines don’t have a barcode because they can be free depending on what contents it has. For example, a recipe magazine might be on stands in the entrance of Asda which you can help yourself too. My dominant image is a medium close up shot of my model who I used throughout. I feel like it makes my model the main focus of the magazine and also links in with one of my main sell lines. This main image allows my audience to identify the genre of my magazine and makes it easier to catch my audiences eyes as they scan the shelf. From my deconstructions of regional magazine, most of them has a landscape image as their main focus, however, I challenged this idea and used a model as I think it was more relevant to the content I was including. Sell lines are the largest advertiser of magazine contents and often used to tease or interest an audience via enigma code as they will want to know more. I didn't want to use many sell lines as I feel my front cover would be cluttered which doesn't fit with my genre (culture), front covers I have looked at tend to have little text on the front but make the sell lines quite large in size. Sub-headings expand the enigma on the main sell lines. I have included more sub-headings than I have with main sell lines as it is the layout I have followed since looking at my inspirations. The same with cover lines, I tried to have minimized text on my front cover. These allow you to advertise other topics in the magazine which I have briefly done on the first third of the page and sort of listed them underneath a sub-heading. My final convention is the colour scheme. The colours I used link with my region and its culture. That is why I chose red, white, black and grey as my main colours so that I could allow my viewers see the correlation between my genre and involving my region. The colours red and white are the colour scheme for Sunderland Football club which is a huge part of my regions culture, hence why I chose the colours. I also feel like the red stands out and makes my conventions stand out.

The masthead on my contents page named ‘contents’ which is the generic title used for this page of a magazine. It gives the audience a guideline to read through the magazine and know where contents is. In addition, I included a smaller ‘logo’ type masthead above the issue month. I think this gives a professional look to my magazine. I made mine a simple bold black headline in the center at the top. This makes it stand out and goes well with my colour scheme. Throughout my constructions, I have followed the same colours scheme which is red, white, black and grey. Again, this is because it represents the colours of my regions Football team (a big part of Sunderland culture). Another essential convention of a contents page and any other page is a page number. These tend to always be at the bottom of the page so that it is out of the way. I decided to put mine in the bottom corner but I used a bubble font effect so that it was still visible for people to see. I decided to use a different range of images rather than just focusing on one. This is because my genre is so broad that it wouldn't’t be suitable to just use one main image. I included a few so that it allowed my audience to see the interesting contents inside. They could have been a bit more colourful but I still think they fit well with my theme. I have also numbered each image so that they correlate with the page numbers, making it easier for my audience to go to that specific article. I feel like since my AS content page, I have took more time in researching and planning this design so that I can improve my skills. The main difference I see is in the sub-lines. I have been more creative in terms of fonts used and the layout of where my text is. And the final convention is advertisements/voucher but I didn't’t really include these as it didn't really fit in well with my genre. Looking at my regional and national inspirations, they didn't’t include a voucher/coupon, so I followed that styled. Compared to my AS contents page, I can see a big improvement and I am pleased with how it has came out. I have challenged the use of fonts. As I chose a culture magazine, the fonts tend to have a traditional look, however I have developed this into a modern looking text as I wanted to modernize a traditional regional looking magazine. This helps out my target audience as it would likely appeal to them more than a ‘fancy’ looking font.

My double page spread has more than one image because I felt that I needed to fil some blank spaces in. the images I have used are relevant to the article and shows direct address which entices the reader to buy the magazine. I also added quite a large quote on the second page because it is a convention used my popular national magazines and I think it engages the reader. Again, I don’t have an introduction, instead, I used a large headline under my masthead so that I don’t go into too much detail. I feel like this gives is more of an aesthetic look which will appeal to my younger target audience. In terms of the fonts used, I didn't’t really use many as I feel it made it hard to read with the amount of text included. To stop this, I went for a simple font in all areas. Some areas do have a ‘fancy’ font which got from 1001fonts.com just to represent the style of my magazine, but I didn't’t want it to look overcrowded. I did use different colours to separate the question from the answer which does make the page look more interesting and easy to follow. By-lines were also used to that it gives credit to the photographer and writer. It makes your magazine look professional and helps with copyright problems. I made them quite small so that they aren't the main focus, but they are still visible for the reader. In addition, I inserted my overall logo at the bottom of the page as it makes it look professional looking and I have seen this being used in different regionals magazines as well as national.

There are a lot of codes and conventions that need to be included in a website. There are so many different areas to making a website so it is crucial to follow them otherwise it wont look like a website. One being a banner/logo/masthead or band. This could be a obvious masthead or it could be a logo (which I used). I feel that it makes it easy for people to identify your website and links with my other constructions as they all have the same name. I also used a predominant image on my homepage which s the first thing the audience see’s. Social media links are essential to add as the majority of websites will have them. Mine are situated right at the top of the page but are colourful so easy to see. It helps promote my work and gives interaction/communication between the business and the audience. I chose not to include sponsors because I feel like it would be too much with a subscription box (which I have used). I inserted my subscription box at the bottom of the home page so that it was easy to see. This allows my readers to subscribe to my website and get notifications on any updates. This is a useful way to keep the young generations engaged with content as technology had became more advanced ad people tend to read more online.

As I didn't create a billboard as part of my AS constructions, I was new to what codes and conventions has to be included. This meant that I had to do quite a bit of research into national billboards as well as regional billboards. The conventions that I included were a masthead which I used the name of my magazine ‘Haway’. I didn't use an anchorage because I couldn't’t really match my image with what is being advertised, but it does represent the magazine in some way. The fonts I used go really well with my overall design and makes it easy to read especially for a billboard. All of the fonts used were from 1001fonts.com which has really helped me. I wanted my billboard to be easy to read but also look interesting, this is why I went for a ‘fancy’ effect. My fonts are large in size so that when you pass a billboard, you can actually see what it says so needs to be bold and clear. The image I have used came from images I had taken for my magazine. I feel like it still fits in well with my advertisement as it represents my target audience and the genre I am going for. I also made the models hair slightly more red in colour so that it can match my colour scheme and I think it makes my billboard look more professional. In addition, I added the date of my event (the purpose of my billboard) to inform the readers.

I uncovered the slight differences between the conventions used in a regional magazine compared to the ones used in a national magazine. To do this, I deconstructed different ‘cultural’ magazines that are well known worldwide and then done the same to magazines that are only in my area. Regional magazines use a traditional style rather than being over-glamorous. The language/text used is relevant to the regions dialect which makes it easier to see what part of the country it has came from. The overall design of regional magazines show individual characteristics depending on the genre of the magazine. If a magazine is regional, they don’t have as much content to include compared to a national magazine. This is because nationally, there is more topics and subjects to talk about where as in a regional magazine, you only include content that is relevant to your region.

This is a magazine that I found in a local supermarket and I used this as my main inspiration for my contents page as it was regional but had a modern twist to it.