By Joe RoperEVALUATION

With my front cover I wanted to make it stand out. I decided to make it scattered and have a very bright colour scheme but still keeping to the rock genre. The banners at the top and bottom with band names on them are very conventional to the rock genre it shows what bands we are going to include in the magazine. Having quotes from articles inside and putting them on the front also draws in readers because it catches they a lot more. Having the image and no background behind is normal for front cover images. With cover stories it needs to be smaller than the mast head and the headline. I had also covered a little of the mast head to make it seem like the image is popping out of the page and it is also very conventional for the mast head to be covered a little bit.

CONVENTIONSON FRONT COVER

Having little stories on the side to make more appealing and it shows what will be in the magazine

Having stories in bubbles and making them seem exciting will attract readers. In it I had decided to

add loads of little cover stories as well to make the magazine feel more alive. It also fills in black spaces that don't look good on magazines.

I had added the price and date on the front so it is more legitimate.

I tired to make the front cover as eye-catching as possible so adding a lot of colours that are easy to read and not to much writing so you can scan through it easy and see what you like.

CONVENTIONS ON CONTENTS PAGE

I did research into other magazines to figure out the conventions of contents pages that are popular in the rock genre. The first thing I did following the conventions, was to add a listing column and putting in a box so it stands out more with writing that is bold and is easy to read. I added the issue number and the cover date in the top corner, which I had noticed was on most of the magazines contents pages. There was a monthly subscription in all of Kerrangs contents pages so I decided to add my own advert in the contents page. I had made a editors letter as well because it is in some of the biggest magazine companies. For a better affect on my contents page I decided to add boxes that related to a certain page number on the side so it gave people a preview on what’s in the magazine. On the contents page I wanted to make it seem very scattered while making it easy to see what you are reading, so I gave each area of the page a section, the bottom was miscellaneous, the right side was previews of pages, and the left side was the listing. Another convention for the contents page is the title ‘contents’ which is normally the biggest title on the page. I had also added my magazines name in the top left corner to add more effect to the magazine.

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CONVENTIONSON DPS

With the double page spread I put the main image and title on one page and the text on the other the make it look appropriate. I added a pull quote from the article and put it in the middle of the article to split it up a bit more. At the start of every paragraph I made the writing yellow and larger to go with my colour scheme and to help it stand out more. With the title of the article I had decided to put blood in red and a different font to give the word more of an effect when you read it. Also on the image I added a quote from the interview and put it in a banner to make it stand out more. With the image itself, I did not do any editing to it and made it fit on one entire page. With the starting paragraph I made it much larger and put it at the top of the page to introduce the story. I also made the first letter into a drop capital which is conventional to all articles, I also made it yellow to make it stand out more from the rest of the text. I put some page numbers on it as well to stay with conventions, I put these in my house colour. For my article I made 3 columns instead of 2 to make it fit better , I also ensured they were all aligned properly and the same width to make it seem more organized. Having quotes from the aricle and making them stand out is a very good affect to have on a double page spread because if a reader relates or likes the quote they are more likely to read the article.

COMPARISON OF FRONT COVER

It was hard to find a magazine which I wanted to use as an example. My magazine has got the image covering the mast head which is conventional to rock magazines. The cover title is in bright colours to make it more eye-catching for the reader and it is a little bit smaller than the mast head. Then the cover story I put in a different colour which is in my colour scheme and it is a little bit smaller than the cover title. I had added banners at the top and bottom which is normally got news or band names on them. I had put the banner in red and the text in yellow because the colours support each other well and are nice to look. I had added a couple stories about bands and people on the bottom of the page to fill it up more. I had added a pull quote on my front cover as well because while I was searching for an example I saw that a lot of magazines had a pull quote on the front of them. The mast head I wanted to choose something that would be very easy to read and something that fits in with my magazines style as well.

COMPARISON OFCONTENTS PAGE

To help me design my contents page I wanted to get an idea on what it needed to make it successful so I used one of Kerrang contents pages for the guidelines and similarities. So with my mind set on what I wanted in my page. I had the listing put into a column on the right of the page, with numbers on the sub categories and the headings larger and in a different colour. All contents pages I had viewed, had most of the writing in the listing in a different font. At the top of the page I wrote contents to follow up what most magazines do with the title of the page. I also decided to put the name of my magazine in the top left corner. I had noticed that in some contents pages they had the name of the magazine on it somewhere, so I put one in mine as well. At the bottom of the page I put the editors letter which is a personal note from the editor telling the reader information about the magazine. Another similarity is the subscription advert I added, which is always on the contents page in Kerrang. On my page I added the issue number and date it was issued, to make it feel more like an magazine. I used a masculine and aggressive colour scheme to keep it conventional for my chosen genre.

To compare my magazine’s double page spread I looked at another one to compare to see what was similar between them. For the magazine I wanted the background to be dark so it made the writing clearer and draw the reader in. With the article I decided to have 3 columns, similar to the Kerrang one, underneath my magazine. At the beginning I wanted to do 2 columns but it was bunched together and didn’t read well so I changed the font size and made it into 3 columns. With the Stan first it isn’t on the example I showed but they are on most double page spreads and with it being on my magazine it draws in the reader making them want to read the article. With the title of the double page spread I made the word ‘blood’ a different font style and colour to make it stand out more. I added pull quotes to the article because it keeps to the conventions of the double page spreads and it also breaks up the text and is more appealing to look at. With the starting word of each paragraph I made them a lot bigger and changed the colour to yellow, they had done this in the dps I am using as an example. I added a drop capital because it is conventional to articles and magazines to have drop capitals at the start of the article.

COMPARISON OFDOUBLE PAGE SPREAD