The title, or masthead, of my music magazine,TUNE, is displayed at the top left of the front cover, covering the majority of the width of the page. This is usually seen in most magazines of various genres. It also follows the rest of the magazines colour scheme, being blue and black. This is a convention which many successful magazines use. The TUNE font is smooth with rounded edges to suggest a free and flowing mood, to relate to the genre of music, being hip hop.
I feel this is a very common style of font for a hip hop music magazine title as it connects to the rhythm of music and tunes, but also portrays the many hip hop artists look and style.
VIBE is a very successful hip hop magazine which uses a similar font and style to its masthead. This too has a smooth plain style to relate to the hip hop genre. However, this music magazine regularly changes the colour scheme along with the title, which isn't a norm of magazines:
Mise-en-scene of images
For my front cover the mise-en-scene of the images is very important, as for nearly all magazines the images are the main focal point and what draws the audience in. With my main image I decided to place it on the right side of the page as this is also a norm for many magazines of all genres. The other images I have included on my front cover relate to an interview and following of an artist on tour inside the magazine. These images are small to not dominate the page and overshadow the main advertisement and image. I chose to place these at angles with white borders to portray a sort of photo album look.
For my contents page I used an image of headphones to relate back to the music genre, as this style is referred to hip hop, you would not see headphones in most other genres. All of the other images used are small and contain white borders to fit the photo album effect I used on my front cover.
I also used the photo album look on my double page spread, where the images related to the interview of the chosen artist. The other image which dominates the left page shows the artist who is interviewed, and is placed over the main text to show his dominance, along with the look of arrogance. The main image which covers both pages relates to the main purpose of the interview, revealing the artists life outside of music and this image can portray an open atmosphere, away from the comfort zone.
Costumes and props
On the front cover the clothes that the artist is wearing relates to most teenagers who are interested in hip hop music, hoodies and jeans. The other images of another artist shows similar clothing, jacket and jeans to again relate to the genre of music and target audience.
On my contents page, similar clothes are used for other artists along with the prop headphones being used. This again refers to the genre of music and target audience, as many teenagers are now wearing the big headphones.
On the double page spread, the artists on show are wearing checkered shirts to suggest the genre of music and target audience as teenagers are often known for wearing this style of fashion, along with the traditional jackets and hoodies. The prop of the bus relates to the information within the interview and adds a sense of mystery before reading the text.
Music genre and how your magazine suggests it
The music genre which my magazine is referring to is hip hop. This is shown and suggests it in various ways in my opinion. Firstly it is the images of the artists and how they are presented, along with the colour scheme used throughout the magazine. These bright colours, blue, yellow and white can relate to the hip hop genre and its style of music. The best example of these colours in my opinion are shown on the double page spread. The text and font can suggest the hip hop genre as the large fonts use a smooth rhythm along with the wording of the text and names of the artists.
Written content
The content within my music magazine pages is both easy to read and easy to understand and there is no background colours or images which effect the text. The large text on the front cover is noticeable from a distance to highlight the artist and draw the audience in. This is a norm for all well known magazines. The magazines features content such as lists of artists, various advertisements which highlight content inside the magazine and paragraphs of text showing information from an interview. There is also some text which relates to the way the target audience, teenagers, speak to each other with words and phrases such as 'bookies favourites' an the title itself, TUNE.
Layout
Getting the layout right for all of my magazine pages is important. I kept to many norms and conventions of most successful magazines when deciding my final layout, especially for my front cover, as this is the most important page as it attracts the target audience. Some conventions which I used in my magazine include the layout of images, size and placing of the masthead and positioning of the advertisements and main and small texts. The double page spread I contains the most conventions when relating to layout, I feel, as just like many magazines the interview or text dominates one page whereas the images and small quotes dominate the other, along with the background image crossing both pages.
