Script

Within my magazine, I attempted to use as many forms and conventions as possible in order to make my product similar to music magazines within my genre. I researched these conventions and incorporated them into the planning for my product, eventually evident in my final pieces.

Title

Firstly, a common convention within music magazines is to have the title easily associative to the genre of music the magazine resides in. For example; ‘Q magazine’ originated as ‘Cue,’ suggesting the start of a music piece, this generic term allowed it to be associated as a magazine which covers most genres. Another example is ‘Kerrang!’ which has an onomatopoeic effect of a deep electric guitar strum, linking closely to the instruments used within the Rock genre. For the title of my own magazine, ‘Defiant’ connotes a rebellious feeling, allowing my audience to relate to the Alternative genre in which my magazine resides, due to its meaning of going against the norm.

House Style

Most magazines follow a consistent colour scheme with a maximum of about 5 unique colours used throughout the pages; this convention varies between certain magazines, with Kerrang! tending to use more colours in order to attract it’s younger target audience whereas Q uses very little variances, focusing on one main colour for each edition. I have used this convention within my magazine, keeping consistent to the colours of light blue, yellow, black and white. I feel these colours have an effective contrast and stand out to the audience on a shelf, but keep consistent to the themes of the magazines.

An additional convention is the appearance of key artists throughout the magazine, noticeably on the front page, contents page and double page spreads. This convention is often shown by Q magazine, which will often feature a relatively large image of the cover artist as the anchor to the contents page. I have utilised this within my own magazine by placing my main artist, N17, onto my front page, and then featuring them as an exclusive piece within my contents, and finally as two large images over the double page spreads. This prioritises the main artist, their prevalence highlighting their importance as a main artist.

Front Page

When placing the title on the page within a masthead, there are two main conventions, the first is a masthead which spans the upper width of the page from one side to the other such as ‘Kerrang!’, these are also occasionally placed beneath a skyline. The alternative to this is a masthead which is placed in the top left of the page, these are used for magazines such as ‘Q’ and ‘NME’ where the title would look out of place or would not fit across the width of the cover. For my magazine, I began to use the second convention within my magazine by placing ‘Defiant’ above ‘Magazine,’ however, in order to keep the title proportional, I had to make the masthead small, it therefore did not have enough presence on the page and looked out of place. Finally editing my design to use a mix of the two, with ‘Defiant’ not being long enough to fill the entire width, but I made it large enough to have a presence on the page, taking up 2/3rds of the width whilst fitting with my theme.

Another convention within the masthead is the font, typically linking to the genre and feel of the magazine, this is shown by ‘Kerrang!’ which uses a shattered font, representing their hard rock genre, rebellious feel. In a similar fashion, I have used a grime font for my masthead with eroded borders; this makes it look rough around the edges and refers back to the alternative, rebellious feel to my magazine.

Additionally, magazines tend to offer free giveaways or competitions in attempts to entice the audience in and make them feel as if they are getting more for their purchase, and offer prizes such as merchandise, exclusive copies or tickets. ‘Kerrang!’ for example is a cheaper magazine and therefore giveaway cheaper items such as posters or competition offers, often displaying this on their front page using a sticker format. I have used this convention in my own magazine by offering a chance to win free tickets to a concert or festival which is very popular within my genre and not very expensive with my magazine being published weekly since only a handful of people can win .The language used is very enticing and is used to lure the audience into my magazine. I have used a page turning furniture located in the top right of my front cover, subliminally making the reader turn the page with ‘FREE’ being the word with the largest font.

Main image conventions do not tend to vary within magazines, with each type having their own preferences and styles. For example; ‘Q’ tends to use close-ups which capture the emotions of the artists, whilst ‘Kerrang!’ uses medium-long shots involving action much more commonly, this could be due to the large variety of bands within the genre used by ‘Kerrang!’, making a medium shot much more viable. However, all music magazines tend to follow certain conventions, a direction of gaze can always been found, with the artist looking directly at the audience and generating a person connection. As well as the artists being found in the middle of the page and being the largest element of it, having priority over even the masthead, showing the artist’s importance to the magazine. I followed these conventions within my own magazine, the band in which I photographed maintained a direction of gaze apart from two members, allowing me to create a sense of importance within the band as the lead singer and talker during my interview on the DPS were highlighted. The image took up the entire width of the page and was by far the largest element, it had priority over all elements apart from coverlines, which needed to be layered above due to the little space remaining after the image was placed. The type of shot was a medium-long studio shot with the band walking towards the camera, frequently seen on front covers with bands within the same genre.

One prevalent feature of the mise en scene of main images is the relevance to the genre that is shown, artists often have a messy look about them, representative of the Alternative culture. There are also popular bands such as The Killers, Arctic Monkeys and Green Day who regularly wear suits, a theme I intended to use for my artists, with suits being complemented by the way they were worn, giving the band a scruffy, edgy look that is often found by artists within the Alternative genre. The colour of the suits fit with the house style, but allows the artist to be differentiated on the page, keeping it aesthetically pleasing whilst showing priority to the artist. This style also relates to the character of the band, as they are represented on the DPS as a classy band but one that is not afraid to mix things up, the relatability of the artist’s style to the article based on them is another convention I found from my research.

Taglines are often positioned on the image layered above it, they usually stay towards the bottom of the page and therefore towards the bottom of the main image so it does not take away from the expression of the artist. They are usually in a unique font, slightly smaller than the masthead so it has an impact whilst detracting from the branding of the magazine. It tends to contain a larger font, featuring the name of the artist followed by a smaller piece of font with a description or quote from the article. This is used to lure the audience in by allowing them to recognise the name of the band, drawing their eye to the description beneath, shown by the ‘Kerrang!’ front cover, which features a pull quote out of context, tempting the audience to know more about the story. I followed this convention in my own magazine, where ‘It’s time to change things up’ is used to identify an event in the band whilst not giving away the whole story, this follows the ‘N17’ which is the name of the band, the small amount of letters allows me to make the font size large and unique to the other fonts, attracting the audience to the name on the shelf. “Exclusive Interview” is also found above the artist name, acting as a short description of the article and it’s type of writing, this is found in magazines such as Kerrang! and Q magazine to make the audience feel as if they are gaining access to unknown material about the band, reassuring their decision to buy the magazine.

Another convention of front pages is the featured artists; this is usually located either down one side of the page or on the bottom of the page, a regular feature of kerrang magazines. The featured artists tends to blend in with the other coverlines, having the intention of being used by the audience when interest is already instilled to validate their purchase by showing all artists directly mentioned or featured in the magazine. This is not always the case as some front covers prefer to focus on the main content involved, however, due to my magazine being published weekly, I decided that it would be a valuable feature to keep the audience’s attention, showing them that there is more to the magazine for their money. Therefore, I decided to use this convention by placing four artists along the footer of the page, I felt that these artists would be most compelling to my audience and represented my genre the best.

Coverlines are an essential feature of every front cover, unless an exclusive or special edition, coverlines can be found on every front page of every magazine. They are conventionally positioned down the sides of the page and are intended to spark interest from the user into the stories, this makes them deliberately vague, consisting frequently of quote, rhetorical questions and outlandish statements in an attempt to bring the audience in. They are also typically seen split up into titles, often featuring artist names, and brief summaries, both of which tend to have different styles of fonts. I have used this convention down the left side of my image, with questions to intrigue the reader such as, “who will come out on top?” and direct language such as “Your verdict on this years top talent,” by addressing the audience directly, I have created a personal rapport connoting that the audience has an influence over the magazine’s content and therefore sparking their interest further, another convention I found through my research. Additionally, I have used 3 artist names within my coverlines, drawing the audience’s eye to any artists they have an interest in and therefore luring them into the magazine.

The final conventions I found for my front page was the barcode, issue date and price. These three features tend to appear around the same area on the front page, sometimes even being contained within a single box. These elements often found themselves at the bottom of the page in order to stay away from the main content and far away from the masthead; however, they sat above the footer because the audience’s eye often scans the footer when glancing at a magazine. Another convention I found during my research was the price of the magazine; it is very common that a weekly magazine is much cheaper than a monthly magazine due to the lack of content inside and the lack of audience income on a weekly basis. A strong correlation also exists between the simplicity of the design elements and the price, with more page furniture elements meaning a higher price due to the higher cost of editing these features. Due to my magazine being weekly, I decided on a cheap price to suit the amount of content featured inside my magazine, however, similar to ‘kerrang!’ I decided on a slightly more expensive price due to the amount of page furniture and design elements found in my magazine adding to the effect. Within my first draft, I placed my barcode and price away towards the top of the page next to the masthead, placing the issue date within the masthead, however, I eventually changed this in my final version to place the issue date, barcode and price next to each other at the bottom left of the page in order to fit into the conventions of the genre, they also felt out of place at the top because I felt they got in the way of the content and took away from the masthead branding.

Contents Page

The contents page contains many unique conventions to the rest of the magazine, this is because it is used to lead the audience’s eye and represent the rest of the magazine. The first convention I came across was the amount of pages, the contents page usually spans across just a single page, however, a select few choose to locate their page over 2 pages, with one page being dedicated to more important features, shown within Q magazine. I decided to plan my contents page over just one page due to my magazine being a weekly edition; I would be able to fit all of my features on it. I chose to make my contents page heavily image dependant due to my genre’s target audience age being young in comparison to the likes of Q Magazine and NME.

Most magazines choose to split their contents page into 3 columns in order to space out the content, with ‘Kerrang!’ however, they choose to split their page into two sections, a large image at the top, which relates to the features and a bottom in which they dedicate to the content. I decided to do this with my magazine, having an image located in the top half of the page of a festival, a feature regularly seen within Q and Kerrang! magazine, bringing colour to the piece, whilst my bottom half was split into three columns in order to revert back to the traditional convention. This allowed me to draw my audience’s eye immediately to the competition feature, with the large image, and then varied the size of my other features to draw their eye towards certain exclusives such as the Q&A with ‘This Wild Life.’

It is conventional within rock magazines to have a large title telling the audience that it is the contents page, this is always positioned at the top of the page, but can be changed based on the layout, as seen in ‘Q’, ‘NME’ and ‘Kerrang!’ However, a unique feature consists in Kerrang! where they repeat the name of the magazine just below the main image, acting as a second title and an introduction for the smaller features. I have continued this convention on my own page, where I have repeated the brand in order to subliminally remind the reader of the genre, this is the largest font on the contents page, and is followed by weekly, reiterating the publishing frequency of the magazine.

Contents pages usually consist of around 3 to 4 images of various types, ranging from studio shots to action shots of festivals, these are scattered across the page, being located next to their corresponding features. In magazines such as ‘NME,’ they locate the page number directly next to the feature of within the image, having a unique feature such as being emboldened, allowing them to be distinguished from the content and making them recognisable to the reader. This convention is repeated in my own magazine with page numbers in a light blue that contrasts the background, positioned directly next to the contents, and within images when necessary such as my exclusive feature. I have 4 images on my contents page, the main one is of a festival, with my exclusive feature being a studio shot of my main artist and a smaller image of a record shop in the bottom right.

Each feature on my contents page is split up into sections that allow the reader to scan the page and pick the particular articles they wish, this is a very common convention of many contents pages, and can be seen within these magazines. Often sections included are: Reviews, News, Features, Artists, Editors, Subscriptions, Upcoming, Exclusives and unique sections that are specific to magazines such as “Snapshot!” for NME. Within my own magazine, I have included Features, Upcoming, Exclusive and Artists as their own sections, with Features and upcoming having clear, white titles that stand out to the reader on the page.

From my research, I found that nearly every contents page has a subscription box from all genres of the industry, especially within NME, Q and Kerrang! This was a tool for the magazine to gain customer loyalty by subscriptions due to the contents page’s large prevalence when reading because the audience uses it to navigate the magazine and therefore spend a large amount of time there. The subscription box is typically found in a bottom corner of the page so that it does not take away from the content, it generally features a large piece of text that says subscribe and has an additional description below that contains the price, used to entice the audience into subscribing by highlighting how much they are saving. I have implemented this into my own contents page, with a subscription box positioned in the bottom left, it has a background that contrasts the rest of the contents and is titled with “Subscribe” which makes the piece stand out. This also contains a screen-grabbed version of a unique front cover, making the audience feel as if they are getting something rare or extra by subscribing, this is the fourth image of my contents page. The price is positioned below the subscribe, I calculated this by multiplying my individual price by 52 and then subtracting 20 pounds, making a realistic subscription price with the audience saving money.

Double Page Spread

The double page spread also features unique conventions to that of the contents and front pages, most notably the inclusion, placement and sizing of certain elements on the page such as the title, drop cap, pull quote, article and main image. Many magazines put a lot of focus onto the main image; this is because they want the artists to speak for themselves, and therefore allow large amounts of expression to be used by the artists. The main image therefore often takes up atleast a page of the magazine including both studio shots and action shots. I have used this convention within my own magazine by allowing one image to take up an entire double side, prioritising it over the introduction paragraph, which is positioned in a corner so that it does not intrude on the image. This page is complemented by a large stylised pull quote, which is another convention found in my research, this reveals a statement about the band and represents their style or beliefs. Often seen in magazines such as !Kerrang and NME, these magazines contain large amounts of page furniture, which I have incorporated via the pull quote.

On my second double page spread, I have dedicated a page solely to the article, allowing my audience to be able to focus on the article in one place. I have broken this up however using a pull quote with unique colouring to make it easier for the audience to read. Both of these conventions are seen in magazines such as Q magazine and NME. All colouring on this page stays consistent of the house style, with an emphasis on black and white with streaks of yellow and light blue seen over the two double page spreads.

The house style is also kept on the bottom of the page, with a black box acting as a background to the page number and magazine title, this keeps the name fresh in the audience’s mind whilst reading through the magazine and is seen regularly in every magazine within this genre. The black-boxed background is given a white shadow resonating from both sides in order to offset it from the page and allow the reader to identify it as the house style.

The final convention of the double page spread is the editor’s name, this is featured just below the title or above the article on most occasions, seen in magazines such as Rocksound or MOJO, allowing the audience to identify the editor and follow their future pieces or recognize them in future editions, possibly building a rapport and therefore a connection between the audience and the magazine. I have followed this convention in my own magazine by placing my editors name in the bottom right of the page at the end of the article. I found this to be the most effective placement for this element as I was able to fill up this space with an image of the editor, linking this in with the page furniture effectively which didn’t take away from the article but was still visible for the audience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, by researching and planning effectively, I was able to incorporate many conventions from magazines within the Alternative Rock genre into my own magazine in order to create a realistic, stylised piece of work that reflected and represented my genre and target audience well. This was emphasized by the way I adapted certain conventions into my own magazine in order to give it a unique selling point and make my magazine stand out from the competitions, such as my increased emphasis on bands and prioritisation of larger stories on my contents page.