Above is the front page of my music magazine and the magazine I used to follow conventions with anotations.
Before I began constructing my music magazine I carried out questionnaires on how people think my magazine should be presented but I had already done some research and had a very good idea on how I wanted to conduct my magazine. Also I designed drafts of my music magazine. This gave me direction, instead of wasting time using a trial and error method. I followed the ideas of this magazine as much as I could by adding and taking some things out so that I could be able to have a finished product that looked as presentable as possible.
This in effect made the task easier and allowed me more time to concentrate on the models, colour scheme, settings, costume, poses and other various important factors of my magazine. By doing this I also was able to have a sense of direction in terms of what I wanted to achieve (my target) and in terms of how long it should take to achieve just the layout and what resources I would most likely need in the process of creating my magazine front cover and my magazine double page spread.
The font colours, the model that I wanted on my front cover, contents and double page spread (the same model to keep a consistency). Then once I had established what exactly I was going to do I began my layout as I hadn’t taken my pictures yet, and I thought that would be an easier task.
When doing the layout of my masthead, names bar and cover line, etc, I made sure that my media magazine followed the conventions portrayed in a VIBE magazine featuring trey songs on the front cover. The forms and conventions I used from this magazine was the colour scheme of the font, font size, and of the masthead. I also adopted the bar code joined with the website idea and noticed the date below and used that idea. My media product follows the conventions of trey songs front cover shown above, using the red, black and white colour scheme. This is shown in the main cover line, the cover lines, the black background and the masthead.
The red masthead was a convention I decided from the start I would definitely have to follow and use. However the names bar was done in white font and I decided to develop this convention by turning the font red as well. I was very keen on the red, black and white colour because rap is a predominantly black culture/ person music genre which is what the black colour scheme represents. The white represents how white people have over the years been more involved in rap and in listening to rap music.
Finally the red represents blood, which is a symbol or expression of suffering of black people and blood spilled by them and how the black people particularly in America were tired of oppression which led to them using rap music to express themselves. An example to this is N.W.A (Niggaz Wit Attitudes).
Also another convention I followed was the small date under the bar code, but I decide to slightly develop/ challenge this form of convention by putting it in the top right of my media product (music magazine) just under the masthead and because it’s white it would stand out on the black background very easily.
I also duplicated the bar code and the website idea with the massive dot, but I slightly developed this form of convention by putting a BBM (Black Berry Messenger) bar code on top which if scanned will direct the viewer to my blog. I generated this bar code using the following link: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Another convention I decided to develop was the stamp looking cover line and use it to make my main cover line stand out in my media product by over lapping part of the cover line onto the stamp and making the font on the stamp look destroyed or damaged which is a signification of teenage rebellion which shows the youthfulness behind the magazine. However I still stuck to the black white and red colour scheme. To make sure that the cover lines didn’t seem too dull I gave them a black stroke and made it large enough to catch the attention of a viewer but again sticking to the colour scheme by making the stroke black is sticking to the colour scheme showing consistency.
I added a camera flare to give the picture (top right corner) that slight edge which challenged conventions of magazines and the magazine conventions that I was following, but this it represents a rising and a shining star (a term used to refer to superstars or talented youths).
For my contents page I followed conventions of soulja boy and 50 cent’s XXL magazine for my contents. The layout is the overall convention that I tried to follow, however I used conventions from other magazines, one with the heading “the B-side” slightly similar to the main conventions I followed but still different conventions. My media products contents page was really inspired by XXL magazine and followed a lot of its conventions. The VIBE magazine with Eminem in it inspired me to follow the convention to fill the whole page with the picture.
When I did this I decided to use the stamp tool to fill up a white space at the top of the page and in effect challenge the convention by using the same image 3 times. I wanted to leave no blanks or white spots so that was my alternative but without using different pictures, using the same image just cloning it.
Originally I had planned to use an all white background for my double page spread as it would look really good/ contrast with the costume that I had picked out (which consisted of dark colours) and draw the viewers attention to the picture as well as the text.
However due to a change in thought to the costume and the background colour I had to abandon the idea but still used some of the conventions. For example I used the heading, and the drop capital idea along with the white page with black text as the contrast made the page look like it contained a lot of information and it also went really well with the font colours I had picked out, making it easy to stick to a specific colour scheme.
What was very convenient is that the new magazine which I was using as a guide had similar or the exact same conventions (i.e the drop capital, white page, and the writing under the heading).
For the double page spread I was following the conventions of Wiz Khalifa’s double page spread in Vibe magazine. I was very keen to use the black and white colour scheme because it represents coming between white and black in the rap music industry, and the gold is to represent success and riches. The black and white colour scheme also contrasted with the font colours used.
Also the gold and black font on the white background really stands out, and on the black background the picture was made the main focus. I used this form of convention and threw a quote onto the picture, which developed this convention. I added strokes to the photographer and writer name to make them stand out, this challenges conventions because it’s not used in music magazines but it is eye catching and by making the stroke black it stuck to the colour scheme.
I did the same thing to the quote to make it stand out by giving it a gold stroke and to make it look polished I added a bevel but I made sure that it would suit with the background by keeping it black.
I made sure that attention wasn’t drawn away from the picture by adding a camera flare to the top right corner of the picture. I had used a camera flare throughout two of the three pictures to keep a level of consistency going, but at the same time challenge conventions because it isn’t usually something seen in magazines but it is there to also represent a rising and a shining star (a term used to refer to superstars or talented youths).
Plus I followed the convention of having a black male on my front cover as in most rap magazines they do, there are hardly any female rappers on the front cover on music magazines, they’re predominantly black male rappers, especially in the magazine company that I am using as a guide.
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