Conventions that music magazines follow…

Colour theme

Most music magazines will follow a colour theme throughout each issue of the magazine they release. It may be subtle or completely obvious to the reader, but they will do it. The use of a colour theme makes the magazine look more familiar to the reader attracting them to buy it each time. The colour theme of each magazine becomes theirs, if another magazine were to use one similar readers would notice, therefore many magazines will stick to simple themes so not to be too obvious.

Layout

The layout for each issue of one magazine will roughly be the same, for example ‘Q’ magazine always have the ‘Q’ in the top left hand corner and is never superimposed, this is to show the audience the magazines importance and make it more recognisable. The layout for the text in the front cover and contents will roughly be different each time, but have a few similarities.

Bands featured

Although most bands featured will be obviously different, a magazine will chose a band or bands to feature that have similarities in their style and genre of music. If a magazine were not to follow what genre of music they feature in their magazine a reader would lose interest and go to buy another magazine which sticks to one, or similar, genres.