Existing Magazine Cover
My Magazine Cover
Masthead
My masthead follows the conventions of existing indie music magazines such as NME. This is because they tend to use bright colours hence I used the colour white for my masthead. The colour of this convention is very important as it is the first thing to catch people's attention as the magazine sits on the shelf. The font is usually bold for a indie magazine, I noticed this as I researched existing products. Luckily I did this as my masthead started off as a thin font which was hardly noticeable, this wouldn't have been successful as it was not following the conventions of existing products. I was able to change this through PhotoShop to create a bold font which stands out. The capitalisation of the font used represents maturity which also enables the audience to read the masthead without confusion. Many indie magazines vary on their masthead capitalisation as some are fully capitalised whereas some are lower case. I decided using my audience research that I did not want a font too childish for my magazine.
Main Image
My main image follows the conventions of existing indie music magazines as I have used one person to fill the full page. I had found through research that existing indie magazines had used a medium close up as their main image. I had developed from this as I had taken many images which were potential main images, I had used a variety of shots to close ups to long shots. As a result I decided to go independently and use a long shot as my main image. Overall this was a great idea as the model was able to use the body language I demanded. The model's body language shows confidence which fits perfectly with the 'indie' (independent) genre. The models used for existing magazines are showing their true colours as they may be wearing unusual clothing or using rare body language which I have worked from. The model used is perfect for my target audience as he can be seen as a teen heart-throb as he fits with the age range of my audience.
Plug
My plug is used to give the audience a change to win a competition. This challenges other existing products as not many indie magazines use plugs for this manner. I have designed the plug to be bright yellow causing it to stand out from the page. I used PhotoShop to manipulate the image to create a border forcing it to stand out. It also catches the audience's attention as I have written the word 'win' and 'tickets' in bold which will increase the interest in my magazine.
Secondary Stories
Secondary stories are regularly placed on the side of the main image so that the reader does not get confused between the secondary stories and the main feature story. The selection of colours I have used follow the conventions of an existing indie product as I have used a bright colour; yellow, to contrast with a dark colour; black.
Feature Cover Story
My feature cover story follows the conventions of an existing magazine as I have used a name in bold. The name usually belongs to the person whom is the main image, which is what I have done. I have used a bright yellow border as bright yellow is within my chosen colour scheme.
Secondary Images
Through research I found that it is rare to see secondary images on an existing indie music magazine as they keep their magazines so simple whereas indie music magazine: NME are a little more complex. This particular magazine uses a secondary image on almost every magazine they publish. I took an interest to this and decided to follow this convention. I took note of the styles they created the secondary images such as the borders around them. The polaroid affect was popular (designing the image to look like a printed polaroid photograph) which inspired me to use this. As not many other indie magazines use this convention; it gave me the chance to challenge them.
No comments:
Post a Comment