Codes & Conventions of a Music Magazine

Before we even began to create our music magazine we looked at a few other successful and published music magazines to look at the codes and conventions. Here are the conventions I identified and a Q magazine front cover that reflects this:

         

Conventions of a Music Magazine

·        Large, bold masthead.

·        An exclusive interview with a band/solo artist.

·        Lots of sell-lines to interest the reader.

·        Clear, large background image, most likely the band or the solo artist being featured.

·        Specific target audience- for example, teens.

·        Aesthetically pleasing layout.

·        A definite colour scheme.

·        Clear fonts that are all easy to read but not the same which would make it unexciting.

·        Up to date information as well as past information.

·        Person used in image to have good eye contact with the camera, their eyes to be a third of the way down the page.

 As is typical the masthead is large and bold, in this case a big red box with the bold letter 'Q' on it. There is a clear, background image of solo artist Cheryl Cole who will be featured within the music magazine, most likely in an interview. The colour scheme is clearly red, black and white and the ample amount of cover lines are in any of these three colours. Cheryl Cole has strong eye contact with the camera which draws the reader in and her eyes are approximately a third of the way down the page which is conventional in a music magazine front cover. There is an aesthetically pleasing layout on this front cover with plenty of cover lines and not too much of the cover image being blocked out. Lastly, all the fonts are legible but not all the same which would make the front cover dull.