Research

To make the creation of my tasks easier, and to get some ideas on how to make my magazines more conventional, I looked at two popular music magazines: Q and NME; both well respected music magazines in today's society. I chose these ones in particular, because I intend on aiming my magazines at the same audiences.
From looking at these it was easy to grasp what conventions I needed to make my magazines more realistic. I would need big bold eye catching titles, and a font that would make the magazine name instantly recognisable, this font and colour scheme would then need to be followed throughout the magazine cover, including titles, banners, and taglines. The background/front cover image would have to be relevant to one of the titles featured on the cover, and this title would also have to stand out so the connection would be made obvious. The other article titles shown on the page would have to be in different colours, with maybe different backgrounds, or highlighted differently to show how they are independent from each other. Another important factor that I almost overlooked in the creation of the magazine covers is the use of a bar code, date and price, this will have to be included also perhaps displaying a website. In terms of looking at displaying different article headings instead of using elongated phrases like 'Also featuring in this week's edition' I could simply use the symbol '+' or '&'. Also to make the cover more interesting I could include the use of different puns and exaggerations to make article headings more interesting (as shown on the NME cover above 'Gerard goes to Hollywood').
Also, using these magazines, I looked at their contents page as I had very little idea on how to present one properly. As I looked at the contents pages it became obvious what I needed to do. The images displayed on the page had to be relevant to the cover, and the pages that the magazine contained were broken down into sections such as 'Review', 'On the Cover' and 'News'. I also needed to ensure that the name of the magazine features on the inside of the contents, aswell as a date. I also needed to make sure that the contents page follewed more or less the same housestyle as the front page. Another aspect that I have to consider is whether I want the contents to be a double page or just a single, as both example pieces display one of each. The layout of Q is more spacious and the image in the middle is large and clear allowing more space for more detail, whereas the contents of NME is a single page, packed with only really the basic details.