Evaluation Question 1

1.) In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazines?

The music magazine I created, ‘Apollo’, I created in a way in which it can be easily identified as a conventional magazine whilst still standing out from competitors. I achieved this through following the guidelines on creating a magazine and attempting to include many of the typical magazine conventions.

After decided on the aesthetic of my magazine cover I decided the masthead should be positioned where it is expected; therefore, I placed the masthead at the very middle top of the page. To make it appear a greater quality and to follow the typical magazine conventions I overlapped the main image on top of the masthead.

The main selling point for a music magazine is the main image which is usually placed at the centre of the front cover. A close-up image or a group image is used in music magazines when it features a music artist. I decided my main image should follow the typical music magazine conventions through the subject in the image’s serious body language and facial expression. It is not uncommon to feature a tone setting image on the front cover which gives the reader an indication to the tone of the featured article which it is linked to. The model in the image is looking directly forward as a mode of address to the audience and draw their attention to the magazine.

The model featured throughout the three pages is portraying a rock music artist who is seen as a prominent and popular figure in modern rock music. Even though I took a wide selection of images, I took them all using a similar style to obtain a coherent theme throughout the pages of the magazine that contained those imaged. I have used the same model for all the main pictures which makes it all complementary however, this may have been a risky stunt and limit sales as readers prefer to see a range of articles/interviews/images. It is typical for a magazine to have a variety of images of celebrities on its front cover but I have only included images of one model. I try to justify this decision by putting across in my article how famous the artist the model is portraying is. On the contents page I have used an additional image of an album cover to preview the reviews section of the magazine which is the only variance in image I use. The font cover of the magazine, whilst only having one image, contains the names of several bands which may grab the attention of the magazine’s potential audience.

Because of the coherence in content within my magazine, selecting fonts that suit its overall theme was relatively easy. I decided on fonts that were easy to read and had a relatively serious and minimalistic look which don’t take away attention from the images I used and the colour scheme. I aimed to achieve an overall relatively simple aesthetic for the pages of my magazine and my plain font choices help me get this effect. Although I aim for a degree of minimalism with my page designs, I use images that steal the attention of the reader from the overall plain page design and the ‘ordinary’ font to stop the reader from being bored by the magazine’s overall aesthetic.

 On the front cover I have included very little text, just the essential information and a few sell-line. The contents page includes a lot more text but it is mainly just headings and sub-headings which include brief detail on the features in the magazine. I believe the format and register used needs to be complementary to the targeted audience, if it was informal it would have created an image as though it was for children taking it away from the expected target audience.

FINAL DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

This is my final Double Page Spread including the article.

FINAL CONTENTS PAGE

This is my final Contents Page

FINAL FRONT COVER

This is my final Front Cover page.