Below is a transcript of the audio response to this question:
One of the
ways in which my magazine conforms to the conventions of real music magazines
is its house style. In my research, I discovered that the colour red is
particularly popular among pop/rock and indie magazines, along with the colours
black and white. Therefore, I decided this colour would capture the genre the
best and attract this fan base, which is my target audience.
My house
style is clearly visible throughout the magazine, with cohesive and consistent
use of colour and fonts. This is further supported by the masthead and magazine
name ‘Indievisual’. For this, I used a bold sans serif font which creates a
similar effect to that created by the masthead of NME. The masthead runs across
the top of the cover, with the cover stars’ heads overlapping it slightly. It
also follows the colour scheme, using the colours black and red to separate
‘indie’ and ‘visual’. The name quite clearly links to the genre. This compound
name literally states the genre ‘indie’, and plays on the word the genre is
derivative from (‘individual’). I decided to play on the word with ‘indievisual’.
As music is an audio experience, you could say that music magazines are a
‘visual extension’ to music.
My cover
includes an image of the band ‘Tigerilla’. The indie genre is dominated heavily
by bands, therefore I decided that I would use a band as my cover star. Also,
the genre is male dominated, with indie bands such as Snow Patrol, The Fray and
Mumford & Sons being all male bands. For this reason, I decided to make the
band ‘Tigerilla’ a band comprising of 3 males and 1 female. This represents the
genre as a whole, as female artists are less common than male ones. Though
Laura Mulvey’s concept of the male gaze applies to products targeted at a male
audience, I have decided against sexualizing my female cover star. This is
because the genre of my magazine tends not to sexualize its female artists, as
the focus is generally placed on the music itself and presenting its artists as
the ‘boy/girl next door’ type. At the top of the page, I have included a black
banner which displays both the twitter name and website of the magazine. Having
a banner on the front cover is one of the conventions of magazines, along with
mentioning the website.
Other than
my conventional sell lines, I have also included a ‘+’ section at the bottom
right corner, listing several well-known indie artists. This attracts several
different fan bases to pick up the magazine and is something that I have seen
on many existing music magazine front covers. In the bottom left corner of the
cover, there is a bar code and institutional information as this is a
convention of all magazines if they want to get published.
On the
contents page I instantly reinforce the magazine’s involvement with social
media, as the icons are presented at the top of the left page. This is one of
the biggest selling points of the magazine, as it indicates that the magazine
is current and gives the readers an easy way to get involved. Magazines
typically advertise the social networks they are on through the use of their
icons.
I gave the
contents page an organized, column style so that the reader would not be
overwhelmed with information, as a lot of information is on this page. I used a
variety of images to illustrate the different content in the magazine. I
noticed most existing contents pages had pictures with backgrounds. Therefore,
I tried to use images with less white in the background to avoid the page
looking too white and boring the reader.
When
ordering the pages, I thought about how music magazines were conventionally
laid out and numbered the items accordingly. For example, I placed the reviews
section towards the back of the magazine, as reviews are typically found
towards the back of most magazines (regardless of genre).
As the
contents page is the page that will most likely be viewed by more readers, I
also placed a little picture of the current issue next to a subscription
advert. This means that I am encouraging as many readers as possible to become
a regular reader of the magazine, as the more people that subscribe will
guarantee a higher readership. Another convention of a contents page is an
editor’s note, therefore I felt it was important to include one to make my
magazine look as professional as possible. I named myself the ‘Editor-in-Chief’
rather than just the ‘Editor’. I chose to do this because this is a term more
specific to the industry, as there are often various editors (e.g.
editor-in-chief and managing editor) whose roles differ slightly.
For the
first double page spread, I used a large image of the band, which overlapped
the first page very slightly into the second. For this I used the text wrapping
tool to wrap the text around the image. I used the same font that I had used on
both the front cover and contents page on the headline. This font is much
bolder than the serif font used on the article text and this allows the
headline to stand out a lot more. In the corner, I included “on tour: March
2014”. As the indie genre conventionally refers to a lot of gigs and festivals,
informing the reader which artists and bands would be on tour (and when) would
be of interest to the target audience.
The second
double page spread contains a lot more images and another important convention
of magazine articles, pull quotes. For these, I tried to use text from the
article that would make the audience want to read why that quote was said.
Again, I used a bold sans serif font, creating a cohesive house style
throughout the magazine from front cover to double page spreads. Next to the
pictures there are little descriptions of the images, mainly to differentiate
between the band members. This is seen frequently in magazines, and the text is
always smaller than the article. As magazines are always trying to find ways to
be more interactive and incorporate technology into them, I also included a QR
code. This links to YouTube for the teaser trailer for the band’s music video.
QR codes are becoming an increasingly popular way for magazines to incorporate
interactivity into a print publication.
On the third
double page spread, I included a box featuring several pictures from the band’s
Instagram feed. Yet again this incorporates social networking into the
magazine; however this isn’t a conventional component of a double page spread.
I added this feature to make the article more interesting and different. This
also helps the audience to identify and connect with the band because seeing
simple ‘snapshots’ make them appear more ‘normal’ and ‘just like everyone
else’. This representation is incredibly important to the genre. At the end of
the article, I created album artwork. This is cohesive with the music video
screen grabs, the image on the contents page and the teaser music video, suggesting
that the band’s marketing material is cohesive. At the end of the article is a
line of text, telling the reader when the album is released. Often, bands or
artists are featured in magazines when they are looking to promote something.
Therefore the last line of text gives the article a more realistic purpose, as
it suggests that featured band is current in the industry.
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