Jude White

 

To begin, we’ll talk about mastheads. Conventionally, a magazine’s title itself will be chosen to fit the genre of music the magazine deals with. For example, if we look at Kerrang!’s masthead, the name is chosen because it is onomatopoeia for the sound of an electric guitar, associated with rock music. For my title, I named my magazine ‘0.26’ as this is the thickness of a guitar string which falls somewhere near the middle of a guitar; the guitar reference connotes rock, whilst the positioning of the string indicates that the magazine is kind of a middle ground, and has something for everyone.

 

There are two main conventions for the positioning of a magazine’s masthead; with a long masthead, such as ‘Kerrang!,’ the masthead will usually run across most of the top centre of the page. However, if the masthead is shorter, this will not work; in order to remain in proportion and cover the width of the page, the masthead would have to be made so large it would take up the majority of the page. Given that ‘0.26’ is a fairly short title, my masthead, like those of ‘Q’ and ‘NME,’ sat in the top left corner of the magazine, a convention for smaller mastheads. Like ‘Q,’ my masthead uses a box behind it to make it more prominent, as unlike the extra-bold font of ‘NME,’ my font does not have a huge impact on its own. 

 

Whilst talking about colours, this seems a good time to discuss my magazine’s house style. Throughout my front page, I use red, black and white consistently and exclusively, establishing a robust but simple house style. The use of only one colour is easy on the eye, as well as making bursts of colour all the more striking. ‘Q’ uses a similar house style. Another integral part of my house style is the use of destroyed and weathered imagery, such as this graphic, or my masthead’s font. This again relates to rock’s grunge-style, ‘rough around the edges’ feel. Similar graphics can be seen in such magazines as ‘Kerrang’, which demonstrates that this imagery is conventional to the music genre I chose.

 

Before moving on to the bulk of the front page, it’s important to consider the strapline I used for my magazine. Following convention, as demonstrated by these examples, the straplines of titles positioned like mine are usually written in smaller font below the title, as this allows them to be easily spotted without detracting from the importance of the masthead. Like many, such as Q’s strapline, I have used superlative, making my magazine seem like it offers something which the competition do not; it is the biggest rock magazine in the country, suggesting that, at least in this regard, it beats its competition.

 

Now we can move on to the cover lines. As seen on the front covers shown here, cover lines tend to mostly deal with artist interviews, and prominently feature the name of the artist about whom they are talking. On my front page, I have prominently featured the artist names, in larger type and a more interesting font than the summaries below, in order to achieve this effect.

 

One convention of magazines is that the cover lines are deliberately vague; they aim to prompt the reader to ask questions, and promise answers within the magazine, providing an incentive to buy it. We see some great examples on the front pages of ‘Kerrang!’ and ‘Mojo.’ On the front page of ‘Kerrang!,’ a cover line asks whether a band are ‘heroes or sellouts,’ designed to make the reader question this point and spark controversy, thus making the reader wish to know more. Another common technique is seen on the front page of ‘Mojo,’ where an out-of-context pull-quote is featured, making the reader question the context and therefore want to buy and read the product. I in fact used a pull-quote like this on my own front page, ‘’, a conventional use of language to increase sales.  

 

>>>>Another way magazines often try and make extra sales is through the use of a free giveaway, designed to make consumers feel like they are getting more for their money. In the case of ‘Mojo,’ this is a free CD, whereas weekly magazines such as ‘Kerrang’ sell for less and as such give away cheaoer items such as free posters. I have combined elements from both these magazines on my front page. Given that my magazine is a weekly publication, I have decided to give away posters, but I have used a sticker-style graphic to present this, similar to ‘Mojo.’ This differentiates the offer from the rest of the cover lines, and therefore draws extra attention to it, especially given that the sticker overlaps other content, meaning anyone viewing the other elements will notice the sticker. Many magazines also place an emphasis on reviews, such as ‘Kerrang!’ And ‘Mojo,’ and so I have done the same, stating that there are ‘over 100 reviews’ in my magazine, similarly to the way Mojo boasts 145.

 

Cover lines are usually split into titles and brief, deliberately vague summaries of those titles, as seen here. I have followed this format, as it is known to spark intrigue in potential consumers.

 

As seen in other weekly magazines such as Kerrang!, my font page is jam-packed with cover lines and information, as unlike a monthly magazine, which is more focused on very attractive design, the front cover of a weekly magazine focuses much more on the amount of content inside.

 

The main image of music magazines follows a fairly rigid set of conventions, but certain magazines do certain things slightly differently. It is a fairly constant thing that the artist looks out of the page at the reader, establishing a personal connection with the reader, and suggesting that the interviews inside will be similarly personal and revealing. The artist picture is always in the centre, and is always directly relevant to the artist’s own musical style and attitude. For example, people appearing on a DJ magazine often appear disinterested or sullen, as this is the general stage presence of many DJs. However, artists on a rock magazine, such as these examples, are often smug or even aggressive, reflecting the nature of rock music and its lyrics. Given that my product is a rock magazine, my photo features a model pulling a smug expression.

 

Given that I used a female artist for my front page, I had to research how women are presented in rock magazines, and came to the conclusion that heavy make-up, vibrant lipstick and hair and dark eyeliner seemed to be fairly conventional. As such, these were elements I employed in my magazine. Another convention regarding the presentation of artists is that they are often presented as larger-than-life characters, such as this example from ‘Kerrang!’ Of Black Veil Brides, or Siouxsie  Sioux in ‘Mojo.’ As such, I referred to my own artist as a ‘devil’ and coloured her eyes and hair red stylistically. Conventionally, casual but stylish clothes tend to be worn by rock artists, and I’ve followed this trend with a long-sleeved T-shirt for my artist.

 

As is required of all front pages, I have included a bar-code and a price for my magazine.

 

On my contents page, there were a whole different set of conventions I needed to follow. For example, contents pages are usually arranged in three columns, and so I did the same. Contents pages usually feature a large, obvious header informing us that the page is in fact a contents page, such as this one or this one, and these can be positioned differently based on the layout of the rest of the page. Contents pages generally feature studio shots or live shots of the artists inside the magazine, and I have featured such shots here. Rock-based magazines such as Kerrang! Or to an extent NME often use a large image of a live concert as their main image, often not of the main artist from the front page, but of another big artist instead. I have taken this approach with my work, using a photograph I took at a gig.

 

Sections of contents pages are differentiated using columns of article headings followed by brief summaries of the articles, which I have done here. The articles are page-labelled on contents pages, the page numbers usually residing in obvious graphics to the side of the article title. I have featured my own page numbers in a similar fashion.  Drawing inspiration from Kerrang!, I placed large page numbers on the relevant photographs to tie everything together.

 

Whilst they are not always on the contents page, magazines often feature subscription adverts. I needed to fill some space below my editorial, so I incorporated a subscription advert.

 

My house style from the front page is continued into my contents page, as with most magazines such as these examples. I have continued this by using the same colours and the same weathered imagery, such as the tearing on this graphic to make it look like old tape.

 

Moving on to my DPS, we again see my continued house style, through the use of faded, battered graphics such as the red bar down the centre of the page; this graphic utilises the colour red as well as grunge thematics. The main title of the article is greatly emphasized as in most magazines, and like most magazines this title has a sub-paragraph giving a brief introduction to the article, designed not to reveal too much and spark intrigue by providing a statement without context; Madeleine Moore wants it to stay that way. We then ask ourselves why, and read further.

 

Page furniture is an important part of any DPS. For example, in this Gerard Way interview from Kerrang!, these polka-dots are used as a border for the page to add some colour and design variety. On my own DPS, I used several types of page furniture common on double-page spreads. The first of these is a Drops-Cap, used in nearly all DPS articles, a large, often-stylised or coloured letter which draws the eye and leads the reader to the article’s beginning, as well as adding some variety to the page. Another popular feature I used were pull-quotes, which help to break up large areas of text. These are often stylised also, as seen in these examples, and I stylised my own by using a gothic font and adding a splash of red to the speech marks, drawing attention to the pull-quotes.

 

The types of photographs used on double-page spreads are generally either posed on-location shots or studio shots. My shot is a studio shot, taken in a music studio implied to be the artist’s place of work. I chose to have my artist playing a guitar to ensure the musical focus is clear, and also to show her ‘at work,’ making the article yet more personal, as DPS articles are usually supposed to feel intimate and personal.

 

As for the article itself, there are generally two conventional formats in which to write. One format is the standard Q&A approach. This involves highlighting the questions asked, and then providing the artist’s answer as a separate entity. The other approach, and the one I went for, is the conversational approach; providing the journalist’s account of an entire conversation. This allows for details to be explored about the artist’s body language, facial expression and intonation, and is more revealing than a stand-alone answer. Given that I learned in my research how my target audience likes to know about the lives of artists, this was the approach I went for. The topics discussed in the article were fairly typical of such articles; the artist’s music, origins and relationship with the rest of their band.