Forms and conventions
- 2. To start with the design I went for when creating my magazine was a very conservative view, to keep it simple for my intended audience, and in line with styles they would be use to. I achieved this by using a colour scheme my audience would be used to, the colours Red, black and orange, with a white background. From looking at other magazines that share my intended audience, they all use these colours, maybe not in this combination, but they do use them quite often, because of this new readers of my magazine would be able to adjust quickly to my magazine. My magazine would also use more traditional technique, photography wise, as my models use poses and props that are easily identified by people of the rock genre. The double page spread is also in tone with more traditional magazines, it is a simple spread, with the article on one side with the picture of the artist on the other. The contents page is heavily inspired by other music magazines that share my genre, as I want my magazine to be a conservative magazine that respects these conventions.
- 3. I drew inspiration from a large number of different sources, I decided the tone of my magazine from my target audience, I grew inspiration for the design from many magazines, mainly kerrang and NME. The content of the article was created with the band fall out boy in mind, as they’re one of the more popular rock bands at the moment, The message of the magazine was inspired by the Emo and Goth sub culture, as many of them note that being Goth or Emo has a great sense of belonging, you’re accepted for the person you’re, that is the message I wanted to get across in the magazine. I also took a lot of advice from my tutor, because of this I was able to more effectively design my magazine.
- 4. Originally I wanted to make a magazine that challenged these conventions, I wanted to make a unique, new magazine for a brand new generation of rockers, to accomplish this I decided to, instead of feature a band, or group as my headline act, I used a singular person, this is quite out of the ordinary for a rock magazine, as the majority of headline acts are groups, including my chemical romance, skillet, etc. My original colour scheme was also supposed to be non traditional, I had planned to make use of the colours Cyan, green and a black background, however I decided that these colours did not complement each other. I was originally going to seek inspiration through magazines such as NME and Q!, however when I made my decision to change to a traditional rock magazine, I decided to look at Kerrang for ideas. Another key component of my magazine that I completely redid was the masthead, originally the masthead looked very basic, just the word generation followed by a bigger version of a Z. This was also an attempt to challenge the typical type of masthead, as it would only cover a third of the top portion of the magazine, instead of the traditional use of it going right across the page. I eventually developed it to the point of it going along with these typical conventions, i also made the z more prominent so that it could be recognised as a symbol for the magazine.
- 5. Another component of my magazine that went through constant revisions was the way I would present my kickers and cove line. In the beginning I decided that the kickers and cover lines would be spread across the page, eventually while I was constructing my magazine, I realised that they would look much more appealing if they were put at one side of the page, that way I could put more content onto the page, such as various flashes and plugs One convention that I have altered throughout my project was the Headline and anchorage. It has kept its original design, however I have changed sections of it, for instance the colour as well as font, size, location and added another piece to the anchorage. The only feature of my cover page to remain intact throughout the project was my selling line, it was always “Fall out boy- their rise from the ashes” I created it first and never altered it in any capacity. The aim of my front cover was to appear as a traditional rock music magazine, in this way I believe I have succeeded, as I have followed many of the constantly used conventions.
- 6. My contents page also went through some minor changes, the general layout has never changed, it has mainly stayed the same since I first designed the page, rather the edits came from altering the fonts. Originally I had decided to use Cooper black for the section headers, I then decided that the font impact had a much bolder presence, meaning it would attract the attention of the readers with little ease. I also changed the layout of the pictures, at first it was just supposed to be a picture of a member of stardust crusaders, eventually, with some much needed advice, I decided to change it to include two cover albums, for the bands the fray and skillet. Another less subtle difference between my revised contents page and the original was the fact that the artist’s names were in a black text, I altered it so that red was a dominant colour, the black was used for the additional information Another change was the fact that the magazine masthead was supposed to be in red, but since I altered the text to be red I decided to balance it out by changing the masthead header .
- 7. Selling Line Masthead Banner Kickers Feature Article Photo Kickers Caption Cover Lines inc. pull-quote Headline Secondary Leads Anchorage Plug Menu Strip Flash Bar Code Conventions for my front cover
- 8. 1. Title Section 2. Header 7. Graphic Feature 9. Inset 10. Sidebar 8. Dropped Picture 11. SubCapital headings (though more often used to split up the body of the text) 3. Caption 4. Subtitle 5. Background Photo 6. Factfile 12. Pull Quote (taken from the article itself) 7. Columns (with the body text) Conventions of my double page spread 13. Byline 16. White Space (helps to avoid info overload) 15. Slug 14. Borders / Dividers
- 9. Section Header Front Cover Copy Issue and Dateline Signed Editorial Stand-out quote (with dropped capitals) Section Banner Navigation Panel (with Border / Divider Main Feature header) (with inset pictures) Pictorial insets (of Section Headers highlights & exclusives) Numbered itemised list Page numbers (with headers resembling kickers and cover lines) Conventions I used in my contents page Subscription box
- 10. I wanted the Z of my music magazine to be an image, that would help boost sales of the magazine, that is why I used it so heavily throughout my magazine, I used it as a short identification mark instead of putting the whole masthead. That is one of the reasons the masthead is the only letter in the whole of my magazine to have its own font, every other word in my magazine uses either franklin gothic demi, impact, or Goudy stout. I wanted the Z to be as recognisable as Kerrang’s K! logo, as a strong brand creates a strong image, a strong image increases renown and sales. I have styled the Z so that it is one of the first pieces of information you see, even when looking at the masthead, the z is what really sticks out, as it is almost twice the size of the other letters in the masthead.