Evaluation: Forms and Conventions

My magazine's genre is "Indie" this is short for Independent rock which is a type of alternative rock music and is associated mostly with bands such as The Killers, The Kooks and The Wombats. The conventions for an Indie magazine are usually very "anti-glossy" and ensure that they do not follow a stylish look about them as this would not reflect the genre of the music well in the style of the magazine. They usually interview unsigned acts, rock bands, alternative rock and punk bands, there are also a lot of posters in these sorts of magazines and gig reviews, guides etc. There are not really any Indie magazines around that I have seen but the closest I can find are rock magazines such as Kerrang!, Classic Rock and Rolling Stone. I have followed a few conventions from Kerrang! but I have challenged some of the conventions as some of my designs are quite stylish looking and give quite a bold statement with colours or even more so the lack of colour. I think my magazine would fill a gap in the market because as I have mentioned before there doesn't appear to be any Indie magazines around and this magazine is a mixture of the new Indie scene with features and conventions of a rock magazine but with a twist so that it isn't confused as just a straight forward rock magazine. Firstly my magazine is called "Versatile" and I chose this based upon it's definition: competent in many areas and able to turn with ease from one thing to another and also having great diversity which is something I wanted to represent through my magazine. My front cover has a lot of regular conventions such as, a masthead, cover lines, bar code and tag lines. I added in a tag line at the top of the magazine cover which has "The best selling Indie Music Magazine in the UK" this is to show the magazine as being popular and with the magazine appearing as being popular and also being an "Indie" magazine sales should be quite high as it fills a gap in the market and as it also appears to sell well.The front cover has a black sketchy front for the masthead, I didn't want to use a font that looked like bubble writing or a serif front because they haven't got the same style to fit in with the magazine theme. At the side of the masthead there is a graphic which I have edited to look like a sticker, it also shows the price at being £2.00 and this would grab the audiences (the audience is generally student aged) attention because it is a low price for a monthly music magazine. I used the same masthead font for the cover lines but this time I used pink for the font colour this is because pink and black connote punk and also they do work very nicely together. Underneath "The Fratellis" and "The Wombats" there are cover lines that would attract the "Indie" audience because both bands are associated with the music and the stereotype and the quotes are associated with gossip/new things and so grabs the audiences attention for knowing secrets and the newest gossip. There is a part underneath "New Music From" for this part I used a font that looks like typed labels and I thought that it would attract the audience because its different to the rest of the typography used on the page. I also chose four well known bands that fall into the Indie stereotype so they will attract the audience too. The image that I have used for my front cover is a medium close up and I decided to use a black and white image to get away from the whole glossy magazine look. The image being black and white gives it a low tech feel and the image definitely shows the sub cultural identity of the stereotype of "Indie", I edited the image by blurring out the background to really focus on the model, I also edited the brightness and contrast and smoothed out the skin. As we move down the cover there is a large font/graphic that says "Megan" which is the cover stars name and the effects around it are sketchy and have have random graphics and it works really well within the cover style, underneath this I have added in a tag line "The Hottest new music act of 2009!" this is to intrigue the reader about the new star and generate more attention to her. The very last thing on the front cover which is left is the bar code which is a basic convention of a magazine and this also shows that the magazine is sold monthly rather than weekly. If the magazine was sold weekly then there would be less sales and less information but whereas a monthly magazine would produce more sales at a low price. The next finished product is my contents page I have used the same colour scheme of black, white and pink which has been identified as the house style for this magazine. I added the masthead into the contents page because its a basic convention. I changed the masthead to a bright pink colour to really catch the audiences eye and also the black against the pink connotes punkiness which kind of fits in with my stereotype, I then went on to write the word contents in a font that represents youth/childhood because it looks like cut out letters from magazines and books like you would do to make scrap books etc at a young age but I also used this font because it has quite a rebelistic style because it isn't a standard usual font. The font gives out it's own stylistic qualities in comparison to the magazine genre. I added a stroke around the the text titles on the coloured squares; black on white and pink on black to make it stand out a bit more and so that it doesn't get lost in the page as there is a lot going on. The contents page is split into coloured squares to put my different article types in because it really breaks the page up and even though it looks quite ordered. Making it off center gives it the style that fits in quite well with my theme. I decided to give the page numbers and article names a kind of column look as it is easy to find certain articles, it's easy to read and is neatly laid out so it doesn't confuse the audience at all. I added a scissor graphic in to connect with the cut out letter typography I have used to title the different types of article. It's quite an odd graphic to have on a contents page but I think it gives it a nice effect. I added in page references onto the photographs this is to give you a sneak peak of the photographs used and to also give an insight on what the article might be like, the page references save the audiences time by showing what page the featured articles are on. I made all of the contents page images black and white which gets away from the glossy magazine feel and makes it appear more low-tech. These images also hold the connection and theme with the front cover and the double page spread. All the photos used have models in them that are connected to the Indie stereotype and I blurred out the backgrounds of my images to make my artists/stars really stand out and grab your attention. I added in a page number because this is also another convention of a magazine and I wanted it to appear as real as possible. The final finished product is my double page spread, starting at the very top of the left page I added a masthead of "New Talent" this was to show that the star is new and very talented and grabs the audiences attention with the large bold font and exclamation mark, next I added in a by line to show who the article is by and I also added in a little sneak peak of what the interviewer and star are talking about and the part of "London's hottest new artist" makes her appear really famous. Next we are onto the article space itself; I added in a drop cap because it is an obvious convention with magazine articles and I wanted my article to appear as if it is a real magazine. I made the very first line of the article a bigger font to the rest to grab the audiences attention and to give it a good starting point. The gutters on my double page spread are close together which would connote that it is busy but I personally feel that it looks quite sophisticated and neat. I made sure that all of the columns were the same size so that they were not out of place and didn't look odd at all. I decided to use sub headings to break up the sections of the article. This was to make it not look as cluttered and overpowering as it might do for the audience. I added pull quotes that would attract the readers attention and interest them. The quotes I used were quite gossipy or had an insight into who the star is and what she is like. I added in a page number again to again because it is a basic convention and I want to make the magazine appear real. I added in an end sign which is a V this is to establish the connection with Versatile magazine and to show that the article ends on this page. Onto the other side of the magazine, there is an image which is a close up of the star and the fact she has her hand over her mouth connotes that she has secrets or could even connote that she has let her secrets slip and her hand is over her mouth in shock this particular picture would attract the audience because they want to know her secrets. I decided to use 3 smaller photos next to the large image and box them in white white sections to create a kind of photo booth line of photographs which I think gives quite a personal feel. The top image is like a high angled close up which could possibly connote a venerability of the star. The middle image, this is a medium long shot and shows the star in a kind of cheeky fun pose. This could connote that the star likes having a good time and is fun. The third and final bottom image, this is a kind of medium/close up at a slight low angle and she is looking right into the audiences eye line which gives the image quite a personal effect.