Masthead.

Lead article and pull quote.

Features advertisement.

Banner.

Medium close up.

Regulars.Features.

Links.

Lead article.

Medium close ups.

Drop cap.

Interview.

My music magazine uses conventions for most of the time but it also challenges them too.

The main conventions I have used are, the masthead, lead article and a medium close up. I think these are the most important things in a magazine and by using them I have created a magazine that people would buy.

I wanted the masthead to look quite loud and bold so it would be well noticeable and would relate to the music and the house style that would be carried out throughout the magazine. To make It look loud, I decided to have the colour as black. I think by having the word ‘GENERATION’ in black it shows how bold the teenage generation are and it relates well to the audience of the magazine, which would be teenagers aged 15-19.

For the medium close up, I decided to have a male model. Most teenaged magazines would either have a good looking male or female on them, depending on the style. I think by having this photograph, the magazine might relate more to a girl audience.

I used the same font for the lead article as I did for the masthead. It was important to do this, not only does it keep to the magazine house style but it would be obvious that it was just as important as the masthead itself. I changed the colour of the lead article to white so it would show the biggest contrast between all the other colours and would show the individuality of the teenage market.

I decided to challenge the convention when doing the lead article by putting it on the right hand side instead of the left. I done this to make the magazine more interesting and different. By not having a left third it did not effect the magazine much, and the front cover still looks as it should.

I think this is because the model on the front cover is looking to the left, and therefore there is not such a space to be filled. I didn’t want to go over the models face with text like I did with the lead article, just to fit a left third in because it would have become too crowded and difficult to read.

On the contents page I continued with the house style by keeping ‘GENERATION CONTENTS’ THE same font as the masthead. I also included the word ‘GENERATION’ in to it so the audience would know that these two pieces are the same magazine. Keeping the name of the magazine on each page is very important in a magazine.

I made the main colour scheme on the contents page red and white because white on black always stands up, and again, has the biggest contrast and red is a bright colour, and relates to the front cover.

I split the page in to two sides so I could write in the regulars and features. This would a convention that I definitely had to put in the contents page, otherwise it would have been hard to understand, and the audience wouldn’t know what part to read first. Also, I kept the wording of the text simple so it would be simple to the audience and would not cause confusion.

I added three websites at the bottom of the contents page to make it look more realistic and to cover up the white space that would have been there instead.

I think I went against only a few conventions on the contents page.

Looking at KERRANG contents, the text and pictures are set out to separate the regulars and features from being too close together and becoming confusing.

I did not add pictures around the contents page because I wanted it to look simple. If I added anymore images or text I think it would have looked too overcrowded and would be harder to understand and follow.

Also, I did not write page numbers next to the features because they’re would be changed, where as the regulars could stay on the same numbered page each issue. I believe that the feature pages would be noticeable enough to recognise when you’re trying to find it that it would not need page numbers.

I made the colour of the background Dark and black, which is unusual on a contents page. Usually they’re a light colour so the contents page would not seem so demanding to look at, but I thought that the colour relates to the masthead, and will show the magazine off as being bold.

Again, on the double page spread, I kept the font of the heading the same as the font of the masthead, so the audience would know that this piece is also part of the GENERATION magazine. The colour scheme on the magazine is generally quite weird and doesn’t stick to a theme apart from being bold and noticeable, so having the word GENERATION in each of the headings makes it much more likely that the audience will know these magazine pages are linked. The layout on this double page spread is quite different. I done It this way so I could have medium close up photographs above it, making the photos more interesting and more people would look at them first, rather than the text, which is good, seeing as the article is about the person being photographed.

These results are hard to read because every person who took the survey picked different magazines. But looking at the two highest scores, NME and Q magazine, I think that they do relate well. I tried to add a pop star atmosphere like a Q magazine would have, but also a bold, rock kind of atmosphere, like KERRANG or NME

From these results I have been given good feedback. On this question everyone has agreed that I have kept to a continuous house style by keeping the same font and coloured theme, which is what I was aiming to do on the magazine to keep it looking the same.

Most people here have spoken about the masthead and how bold it is, with the contrast and the lines going through the letters, which is what I tried to do to make the word generation seem so much more stronger than it would have been. Someone gave me feedback about there needing to be more on the front page, which is true but I think that adding text over the models face would decrease the interest on the artist itself and focus more on the headlines around him.

I have been given a lot of criticism about the contents page, ranging from being too dark, having problems with the colour scheme and not have paged numbers. For all three I agree and will change if possible. I find that the colour scheme for the background is quite dark and colour probably be lighter, and the ‘generation’ word should be white instead of blue to show another contrast like on the front page.

I am pleased with the results about the double page spread because they said what I was hoping they would. Most people have said that they liked the layout, the design and the photography which is great seeing as that’s what I wanted more people to focus on before reading the text.

I realise that this question is quite biased towards my magazine, but I did add a ‘other’ box just in case anybody wanted to use it. I like the fact that everyone has chosen at least one each on this question. This shows that people like my magazine and find it interesting and different but at the same time it isn’t too wild and it is still classic, stylish and formal, while being loud, which is what I wanted.

I think if I am able to improve my magazine, I will take all these general comments in to account as they all hold very good criticism. I understand that there was a lot of the same model, but I kept it like this seeing as the magazine was focused on one certain artist and as expected, their face is usually all over the contents and double page spread on most magazines. I am glad that my audience noticed the colour scheme I tried to create and have a little understanding on why I done it the way I did.

My aim for this magazine was for it to be for the teenage market. People like me, and therefore I would know what kind of opinions they have on particular magazines. I would have thought that this magazine would relate more to girls rather than boys and at a particular age range or 15 -19. I think this because at this age, people begin to mature and enjoy real music 24/7. By this survey result though, more boys have taken it than girls, which could mean that more boys are interested in music magazines than boys. The music my magazine relates to would be for both male and female.

From this survey result I believe that you can tell what kind of audience the magazine is suitable for. When sending out this survey, I put it on Tumblr and Facebook, where I have teenagers at the age of 15 – 19. Seeing as most of the people that took the survey, apart from one said that they liked the magazine, shows that the teenage market would buy it.