Evaluation Question One – Magazine Conventions
When developing the final product for our music magazine, we aimed to include many different forms and conventions of real music magazines in order to appeal to a specific audience and produce an adept look. As we designed the magazine and drew up drafts and then final products, we were inspired by other publications; we assessed what attracts their readers and how their techniques could aid us in bettering our magazine.
For
the front cover, we were primarily inspired by INDIE magazine, based in Berlin it portrays a quirky and unique style and their clean and contemporary look was similar to what we hoped to achieve for Indie Now.
mers. The imperative statement ‘EXCLUSIVE’ suggests to the readers that the
magazine offers something that they won’t find anywhere else. We notice
d that other magazines utilise brightly coloured boxes to help their cover lines stand out on the page, we therefore chose to both challenge and develop this idea by using a coloured outline of a box to frame and draw the reader’s eye to the cover lines.
It was also agreed that this box should be a blue colour similar to that of the model’s clothing so that the colours compliment each other and create an aesthetically pleasing look.
We drew inspiration for the masthead/logo for the front cover from NME magazine, an extremely popular Rock music magazine based in London. Havin
g analysed NME’s logo we found that it is the first feature on the page that draws the eye in, it has also become a widely recognised symbol due to its concise and basic look.
We therefore agreed that a bold, brightly coloured masthead would benefit the page and create a professional look. We trialled several different fonts but found that ‘Arial’ achieved the look we wanted, by using two layers of different colour we were able to create a shadow effect that helped it stand out on the cover, following the conventions of real music magazines and will make out magazine instantly recognizable.
When developing the contents page, we were inspired by the conventions displayed in magazines such as Q. We thought the way in which it was set out, u
sing different and sections could help us create an effective composition for out magazine.
We chose to apply the colours featured in the main image on the page to the contents itself to create a house style, this ensured the colour scheme was balanced and nothing clashed on
the page, we chose to continue the colour scheme featured on the front page and therefore conform to the conventions of a real music magazine as they would generally use the same house style throughout the majority of the issue. I think this works well in Indie Now as it allows us to cover a variety of styles and experiment with our ‘look’, which is reflective of the Indie genre.
We chose to use a similar font to ‘Arial’ in the title called ‘Helvetica Neue’ to maintain a professional and sophisticated look for the page. We chose to differentiate the name of the magazine from the title of the page as we felt it was more pleasing to lo
ok at, to do this we changed the title, ‘Indie Now’ to a sky blue and put it in bold. This theme was carried on throughout the contents page, applying the bold effect and blue colour to the subtitles: Music, News and Style etc. This follows the conventions of most real magazines as the page references and subtitles are usually highlighted, along with other important words such as ‘EXCLUSIVE!’.
The general layout of our contents page conforms to the contemporary conventions of many real publications. We chose to use several images and distribute them around the page and to also include images from the main article. By using pictures of other artists it allowed us to advertise the other features in the magazine while keeping the amount of text on the page to a minimum. This follows the general conventions of most magazines.
When we were creating the final product of our double page spread, we chose to carefully follow the conventions of real music publications reg
arding the composition. We chose to use one main image spread across the two pages to create an interesting and professional result. As the band featured in the article were young and trendy individuals, we also wanted the final product to have the same look as this would appeal to the vast majority of our target audience.
This could be considered to be subverting the traditional conventions of a magazine as the artists are seen to be fooling around instead of posing for the camera, however I think this works very effectively for this magazine.
For the colour scheme of the page, we chose to stick to dark purple colours as this matched those featured in one of the model’s clothes. This was used for the masthead of the page, along with the same Indie Summer font to help the flow of the magazine.
When writing the interview for the page, we identified that it was very difficult to choose a colour for the font that stood out against the light and dark areas of the image, to rectify this we used a box in the same purple colour with a low opacity to allow the text to be seen. I think this works effectively and also challenges the conventions of real magazines as it is a quirky and contemporary idea.
As we arranged the composition of the page, we chose to place the main body of text on the right hand side in an area of the main image that was mostly negative space, and helped us to avoid obscuring any of the model’s faces with text, this follows the conventions of a magazine as the article is always easy to read and clearly visible on the page. To balance the page, we then added the two polaroids to the left hand side of the page, these compliment the genre of the magazine well and add a unique and captivating edge to the page.
We could have possibly subverted the traditional conventions of real magazines by changing the fonts and colours used for the double page spread, however by maintaining a fluent house style, we managed to create a unique but professional look for Indie Now.
For
the front cover, we were primarily inspired by INDIE magazine, based in Berlin it portrays a quirky and unique style and their clean and contemporary look was similar to what we hoped to achieve for Indie Now.
The image on the cover follows the conventions of a real magazine as it is an anchoring shot of an artist featured within the issue, the medium-shot of the model is the only image on the page meaning that the consumer is immediately focused on the most important article in the magazine, this in turn draws attention to their interview and increases readership.
When choosing and editing our cover image, it was agreed that a portrait picture of a model to act as an anchoring shot achieved the results we wanted as it was more appealing to the eye. We thought that it best reflected the vintage style of the magazine as this is very popular among the younger members of the target audience. The vibrant blue colour of the model’s denim jacket and sunglasses tied the colours on the page together.
Moreover, INDIE magazine features little to no cover lines in their covers, subverting from the conventional kickers or teasers found on other magazines such as NME. In the design of our cover, we have found a happy medium between excessive cover lines and a somewhat blank canvas.
The cover lines on our front cover follow the conventions of typical music magazines, in that they tease at what articles include in the hope of attracting consumers. The imperative statement ‘EXCLUSIVE’ suggests to the readers that the
magazine offers something that they won’t find anywhere else. We notice
d that other magazines utilise brightly coloured boxes to help their cover lines stand out on the page, we therefore chose to both challenge and develop this idea by using a coloured outline of a box to frame and draw the reader’s eye to the cover lines.It was also agreed that this box should be a blue colour similar to that of the model’s clothing so that the colours compliment each other and create an aesthetically pleasing look.
We drew inspiration for the masthead/logo for the front cover from NME magazine, an extremely popular Rock music magazine based in London. Havin
g analysed NME’s logo we found that it is the first feature on the page that draws the eye in, it has also become a widely recognised symbol due to its concise and basic look.We therefore agreed that a bold, brightly coloured masthead would benefit the page and create a professional look. We trialled several different fonts but found that ‘Arial’ achieved the look we wanted, by using two layers of different colour we were able to create a shadow effect that helped it stand out on the cover, following the conventions of real music magazines and will make out magazine instantly recognizable.
When developing the contents page, we were inspired by the conventions displayed in magazines such as Q. We thought the way in which it was set out, u
sing different and sections could help us create an effective composition for out magazine.We chose to apply the colours featured in the main image on the page to the contents itself to create a house style, this ensured the colour scheme was balanced and nothing clashed on
the page, we chose to continue the colour scheme featured on the front page and therefore conform to the conventions of a real music magazine as they would generally use the same house style throughout the majority of the issue. I think this works well in Indie Now as it allows us to cover a variety of styles and experiment with our ‘look’, which is reflective of the Indie genre.
We chose to use a similar font to ‘Arial’ in the title called ‘Helvetica Neue’ to maintain a professional and sophisticated look for the page. We chose to differentiate the name of the magazine from the title of the page as we felt it was more pleasing to lo
ok at, to do this we changed the title, ‘Indie Now’ to a sky blue and put it in bold. This theme was carried on throughout the contents page, applying the bold effect and blue colour to the subtitles: Music, News and Style etc. This follows the conventions of most real magazines as the page references and subtitles are usually highlighted, along with other important words such as ‘EXCLUSIVE!’.The general layout of our contents page conforms to the contemporary conventions of many real publications. We chose to use several images and distribute them around the page and to also include images from the main article. By using pictures of other artists it allowed us to advertise the other features in the magazine while keeping the amount of text on the page to a minimum. This follows the general conventions of most magazines.
When we were creating the final product of our double page spread, we chose to carefully follow the conventions of real music publications reg
arding the composition. We chose to use one main image spread across the two pages to create an interesting and professional result. As the band featured in the article were young and trendy individuals, we also wanted the final product to have the same look as this would appeal to the vast majority of our target audience. This could be considered to be subverting the traditional conventions of a magazine as the artists are seen to be fooling around instead of posing for the camera, however I think this works very effectively for this magazine.
For the colour scheme of the page, we chose to stick to dark purple colours as this matched those featured in one of the model’s clothes. This was used for the masthead of the page, along with the same Indie Summer font to help the flow of the magazine.
When writing the interview for the page, we identified that it was very difficult to choose a colour for the font that stood out against the light and dark areas of the image, to rectify this we used a box in the same purple colour with a low opacity to allow the text to be seen. I think this works effectively and also challenges the conventions of real magazines as it is a quirky and contemporary idea.
As we arranged the composition of the page, we chose to place the main body of text on the right hand side in an area of the main image that was mostly negative space, and helped us to avoid obscuring any of the model’s faces with text, this follows the conventions of a magazine as the article is always easy to read and clearly visible on the page. To balance the page, we then added the two polaroids to the left hand side of the page, these compliment the genre of the magazine well and add a unique and captivating edge to the page.
We could have possibly subverted the traditional conventions of real magazines by changing the fonts and colours used for the double page spread, however by maintaining a fluent house style, we managed to create a unique but professional look for Indie Now.
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