Codes and conventions of a Music magazine

To get a better understanding of music magazines, i researched the codes and conventions of the music press. Firstly i looked at the fron covers of music magazines. The codes and conventions i found are as follows:

• Masthead- So the reader can recognise the title of the magazine.
• Lures- To give the reader an isight to the magaizne of what type of articles will be shown.
• Straplines- To show readers the different articles that will be in the magazine.
• Date/Issue/Barcode- To show when the magazine has been published and how often it is being published. Also a barcode to be scanned in shops to make it look realistic.
• Price- To tel readers how much the magazine will cost.
• Cover lines- To link to genre of magazine.
• Main images- To show the image of the artist/band.

Next I looked at the contents page codes and conventions. i found that this includes:

• Editorial - This is done so that the magazine connects with the audience. They have an appropriate mode of address
•  Page number- The consumer knows what page it is an can find articles easier
•  Images (several) that relate with the music and genre- This is to get the audience hooked and want to read the articles to discover what the pictures are about.
• One main image- This is the focus of the magazine the main article the one that is the cover story so it is clear to the audience that this is the main story.
•  Connects with the front cover- image, masterhead- This is so that the target audience can find what they were looking for on the front page.
• Different fonts- This is used so that it is not boring but catchy and you’re drawn to different pieces of information
• Ordered- this is so that the target audience can easily access the articles they want to read as they will be under headings so it is easy to find
• Colour theme (connects to the front cover)- So that the audience can easily recognise the magazine in the more issues and also it looks serious. Doesn’t look messy and unorganised
• Captions with images- So that the target audience can understand what the pictures are and who of.
• Magazine title- So that the reader is constantly reminded of the title of the magazine so that it stays in their head.
• Date of release/ issue number-so that the reader knows if it is the most recent magazine
• Columns (3 or 4)- Shows that there is plenty of content within the magazine showing the reader that it is not only the main story in the magazine
• Focus on the cover story- So that the reader knows that, that is the main story
• Separated into subheadings example, regular features, news- So that the reader finds it easy to find what they are looking for
• Web address- So that the target audience can access the internet address

I then read over all my research and tried my best to make sure my music magazine included some of the contents

Draft

Online Vs Print Research

Magazine Research: Online Version Vs Print Based Version

 

In class we compared two different forms of a magazine, which i chose Kerrang. We looked at both the print based version, and the online version of the magazine, comparing the features and components of them both. we had to decide which was more informative and which was the easiest to read and navigate to the selected pages. Here are some of my findings:

Similarities: 

• Fonts are consistent which create a link between the two forms of the magazines. 
• I found that the colours were the same on both forms of the magazine, they use colors like yellow, black, red white and grey. This gives a clear house style to the magazine version, and is easy for the reader to be able to recognise the style.
• the artists and images used were similar.

Differences:

• The navigation of both forms of the Kerrang magazine were different as you are unable to use links on the magazine print based version and they use contents pages.
• The features were different as on the website they use podcasts and the print based version uses quizzes to engage the readers.