I believe my draft magazine cover develops media conventions that are already used in the media world currently. Many parts of my magazine have been laid out or appear as other magazines are set out or appear. Firstly the banner develops current media conventions by being set out a lot like the magazine, NME. I analysed NME before creating my magazine and saw that the logo like banner worked very well but suited a very quick to read and small name of a magazine. Therefore when I decided on the name ‘Fix’ for my magazine I opted for the logo type banner because it would suit that type of magazine name a lot better than have the three letters spread across the top of the cover page.
Secondly, this then narrowed down my options for how I was going to set out my cover page. I didn’t want to come up with my own layout because this may seem too different to regular magazine readers and the layouts already out there on the market are very well structured and get across why the reader should purchase their magazine. I therefore decided to use the golden spiral method while also ensuring I used the rule of thirds to make a very well laid out magazine cover which also attracted the reader to the main stories by positioning them correctly. I rejected using the F or Z model because I decided I would like the picture to attract a lot more attention than the cover lines and I believed the golden spiral suited this lot better than the other two methods did.
Third, I decided on a colour scheme for my magazine. Again I decided to develop on already used conventions by adapting them to make a unique yet very familiar and standard looking colour scheme that I believe also suited my genre of music very well. After researching magazines such as NME, Kerrang, and Billboard I noticed that the pallet of three colours is regularly used and based around black and white. While doing my research I also noticed that red was regularly used by many magazines and seemed to also be a standard colour. I decided that I wanted to challenge that part of the convention and choose a different colour that came across bold and creative, representing the genre of music. I chose a very bright green because as well as meeting my other two points it also connotes a sense of neutrality which could also represent the varied music that can be heard in the one genre, a wide spectrum of different styles of music, fashion, attitudes and ideas.
Finally on by cover page I also went for a white background. This decision was also made based on my research of other magazines. Many of the covers were either showing a white background or a very neutral background. Therefore I decided to use this method on my cover page by keeping the cover page white underneath.
On my contents page I opted to combine two methods that I had seen while researching other magazine contents pages. While researching NME magazine I saw that they promoted their main feature articles with a small picture and description. This meant they were big names that the magazine expected their readers to recognise. I have done this on half of my magazine contents that show the three features of this week’s issue of my magazine. Then while researching Kerrang magazine I also saw that some magazines are laid out with just a simple list of what appears in its issue and where it will be found. I therefore thought mixing the two together would be a very different look for my magazine while also keeping the neat, structured and professional look that it needed to become a popular magazine.
Next, I had to decide whether to keep my colour scheme and fonts throughout my magazine. While getting rid of it could allow me to be more creative and make a very different looking magazine in comparison with the competing market I decided to keep the colour scheme through the magazine. I did this because I believed it gave the magazine a very distinctive look throughout and also made it easy and good looking for the user with the use of continuity throughout. Also after doing more research I saw that keeping the colour scheme throughout was the regular trend in the magazines that I would potentially compete against with my magazine.
When it came to creating my double page spread I already had an idea in mind that I believed would work very well and I had seen before I many magazines. I wanted to create a double page spread that had a main shot covering the left side and then the article on the opposite side. After the analysis section of my course I saw that this style was used in many feature articles in music magazines, therefore I decided to use this convention in my magazine. Then I decided to challenge the convention that the font changes on the articles to make them clearer to read. I decided to keep my fonts throughout to add to the sense of continuity and because my fonts were easy to read, they did not need to be changed throughout my magazine.
Overall, my analysis of other magazines that I would potentially compete against in the genre market was very important to me when creating my magazine as it made it a lot easier to create a very professional looking and very similar and familiar magazine for usual magazine readers. This should then hopefully bring readers of competing magazines into my magazine. The analysis helped me understand how important it was to get your genre across through your magazine with things like colour scheme, layout and typography but also through your pictures, their mise on scene and general feel they give out.
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