Evaluation

Rebecca Paterson

Researching current magazine front covers

I found that the popular genre of music in my intended audience was indie/rock music, therefore I needed to research current magazines. I researched Kerrang, NME and Q, as I thought they best fit in with my magazine.

I used these magazines to look at the codes and conventions, so that I could add these features to my magazine so that my magazine looks as effective as the professionally published magazines.

I used the code and conventions of the magazine on my magazine as they are well known and would attract the atten6ion of my reader as they have worked for these successful magazines.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

As my theme was Indie/Rock the best suited magazines were NME, Kerrang and Q. The code and conventions of these magazine indicate what I should use in my magazine to make it successful.

For my Masthead I used a plain simple font and then used a spray tool over the white text to make it look more in keeping with the indie/rock theme, as the initial design looked more classical music themed rather than indie. Q’s magazine sell line is “Britain’s

Biggest Music Magazine” I used this and created my sell line “The best in upcoming indie music” this is similar to Q as it is promoting the magazine to be big and popular. I used the same colour and texture as my Masthead to keep my theme and colour scheme going.

My main headline I set out in a similar way to Q, with a bold, simple text across the page, with a pull out quote underneath. I used a bold turquoise colour as black or white did not stand out against the background of the artists name and I used a bright red text to also highlight the pull out quote so it stood out against the artists title and background. I chose to use Arial Narrow, it was simple and bold and like the layout of Q I wanted it to be easy to read, plain and not over crowded.

I used the right side of my magazine to use further detail to attract the intended audience, like the layout of NME I used 2 colours, to differentiate between artist and the sub-line. I tried to keep in theme with the code and conventions of other music magazines and I think I did this successfully also by fitting the information in the tree bark so it went in line with the shape of the tree, like in NME where the writing went in the shape of the outline of the model

I also followed another code and convention, and added a sticker type icon advertising and attracting the reader as it stands out on the page and. The background colour is the turquoise colour, in an embossed on the page so it looks effective, also so it looks le a sticker, it makes it look more attractive and noticeable. I chose to write “WIN FREE GIG TICKETS” because I saw that this was a popular code and convention of other magazine such as this one on the cover of NME. The font is simple and black so it stands out and add to the idea that the sticker is stuck on.

As well as the sticker, I also added a banner at the top of my magazine front cover like this banner on the front of Q, this was to add addition information about more articles inside the magazine to attract the audience as I saw this was also a popular code and convention, I used turquoise so the add-on’s were the same colour and used red and black text so it was bold against the magazine background and also so it stood out.

When making my magazine I looked at other magazines to see what was post popular in the code and conventions they used. Firstly I looked at the images, all my magazines I looked at used mid shots of the model, the magazine which used shots where the model looked at the camera was more personal. The magazines depicted all the models are wearing grey, black or white and I used this convention of this genre of

magazine in my magazine so the model is wearing a leather jacket and a white skirt and a white top. I also chose these colours because they fitted in with the colour scheme that proved most popular in my survey when creating my research as these colours were associated with indie/rock music. Also with thelayout of my magazine I put the text over the images like in NME(top right hand corner) making sure that the text did not make the image unclear, the mast head is in the top left hand corner above the image and this was not obscured by the image like in the Kerrang magazine (middle image) because as it is the first issue of my magazine the mast head needed to be clear because the intended audience would be unfamiliar with the magazine and it need to be clear and attention grabbing.

I put the barcode at the barcode at the bottom right hand corner of my magazine to follow the conventions of other magazines. The barcode is usually put in the bottom corner because it is not intrusive of the magazine layout and does not make a huge difference to the magazines appearance, however it easy to see, and so the purchasing of the magazine is effortless. Magazine such as Q, Kerrang! and NME also do this. As well as this I noticed that the price and sate was also located near the barcode so put this underneath.

I made a subscription bar like many other in music magazines using the same colours that were in my colour scheme, also using my front cover magazine as a screen shot, as an example of the magazine like other magazines had done like this one from NME. As the price of the magazine was £3.50 I made the monthly cost lower so my intended audience would be attracted to the offer.