Evaluation Question 1

Masthead

I feel as though my magazine has gone against normal conventions as I have used fonts, photo styles and magazine layout that arent commonly seen on the market. However this was purposely done as I wanted it to be very unique and for its different features to make the magazine stand out against the rest of the available magazines. Not many traditional magazines use a joined up font but do however use bold and big sized fonts for the masthead on the cover page, that also tend to be the biggest writing on the front. The font I used was Brush Script MT Italic a set font that comes with the Photoshop package. Although not many magazines use the joined up font, the Oh comely magazines do and this helped to inspire my choice as it is a life style magazine that targets at women. As they target at women I felt that gaining inspiration from their magazine would help to attract the female audience for my magazine.

Here you can see that I have been inspired from the Oh comely magazine from their joined up writing used for the cover masthead. Both my magazine to the left and the Oh comely magazine follow traditional conventions of the magazine masthead being big and bold compared to the rest of the text on the cover.

My magazine masthead goes over the top of my cover image, as through doing research I have found that many famous magazines such as vogue are able to have the cover image overlapping the masthead as they are well known and have an easily identifiable font due to their popularity. As of this I formed my magazine so that the whole masthead is visible as it is new in the market and therefore arent familiar with the font or the name of the magazine. It is also seen in industry that less popular magazines tend to have all of their masthead visible like mine.

Above are popular and well known magazines which can afford to have part of their masthead covered up due to their now recognised font and name due to their success and popularity. Below however are examples of what some consider to be less famous magazine which have all of their masthead visible following traditional conventions of less famous magazines having the whole magazine masthead visible like my magazines. I feel that the magazine name even fits the genre well and speaks to the reader as it reflects the genre and gives them a good idea as to what the magazine is about. Dixieland is anickname forthe Sothern states of America which is where country musicoriginatedmaking the title follow the common conventions of real magazine products as like the magazine vogue its name matches the content of the magazine as it meansthe prevailing fashion or style at a particular time. My magazine name is quite long andperhapsdoesn'tmatch the traditional conventions of a magazine however I havetakeninspirationfrom existing magazines such as dazed and confused Wonderland magazine as well as a currentcountrymagazine calledMaverick astheseall haverelativelylong names for their magazine. Despitethe magazine name being long I still feel that it is memorable andcatchy which is what traditional magazine mastheads aim to be.

layoutand photography

When it came to the layout of my magazine I was taking inspiration from the current country music magazine called Maverick as I wanted the magazine to follow a country style in the way it was styled and laid out. From the inspiration I made my magazine quite minimalistic bringing in some country elements such as the artist styling, county/western fonts and stereotypical country language such as yall and howdy in the magazine article. I did however make my magazine quite creative in trying to attract the audience of tumlr kids from my research on UK tribes. In doing this I made the photographs look in a similar way to recognised tumblr pictures and made the layout of my double page spread interesting to look at visually. This isnt following traditional magazine conventions as the photography has been edited with different style effects on the same page whereas many magazines on the market seem to have the same photo effect across their whole double page spread there are some occasions though where there are multiple phot effects used on a double page spread such as in the cosmopolitan magazine picture to the right. The picture to the left however is how most magazines tend to have their images, with all of them having the same effect applied to them.

My contents page follows a conventional layout as I have been inspired from a vogue magazine contents layout due to its creative yet simple layout that I thought would suit my magazine well. In choosing to be inspired from a popular and famous magazine this helps me to feel that my magazine would be successful in the industry as vogue tend to use very conventional layout that are considered traditional.

Artist styling I have styled my artist in a variety of clothing with two different outfits I have dressed her in a way of making her stand out from the crowd. This was done through dressing her in clothing that is fashionable and attractive. This also helps for the male gaze which can attract people to her and make them want to read the magazine, through using tight clothing this helped the male gaze as it helped to define the body better and make her look more flattering. I styled her with a country style hat in order to bring across the country element of the music magazine. This was to emphasis the magazine genre through the artists clothing. Clothing that is a bit different was used as thus helps to give the artist a personal style that get the audience of the magazine talking about the different look. This would them bring publicity to the magazine. The clothing was kept a similar colour help keep a constant theme and flow throughout the magazine pages. I have used this from existing magazines as they tend to have a artist in the same outfit for a series of photos just like the magazine below. In comparison with my artist styling I have developed the artist styling to fit my genre of magazine but have also edited the photos to give them slightly different looks to capture the tumblr style and as a result it has made the photography more interesting although the clothing is similar for the two outfits. Like in other country music magazines they tend to use a cowboy hat to bring across the country element of the magazine and artist genre. I have taken this and applied it to my own model/ artist from inspiration from magazines such as the ones below.

I have used quite minimalistic natural colours for my magazine colour scheme but then stand out contrasting colours such as the white and black wording. This has been used from existing magazines such as the ones below as all of the country magazines follow a similar trend of having photography taken in the country or outside to get a country element brought into the look of the magazine. I have used this research of the existing country magazines and taken some of my photography in the country in order to follow the conventions of existing magazines. The natural coulours in these magazines tend to follow similar patterns of having green and brown I have also done this in my magazine through having a similar colour scheme within my pictures and masthead. I also useda complimentuary colour box for r the main sell line which is what country weekly has done on the Taylor swift cover issue as it stand out from the rest of the cover yet doesnt look out of place. My magazines contents page fits conventional layout and design as it has the photography with in box is which is how magazines tend to set out their contents page. My magazine contents page magazine might challenge convention however as the magazine content text goes around the pictures which are placed central to the page. Whereas in the magazines below the pictures are placed so that the text is next to them and not going around them. Contents pages tend to have the biggest start as their cover and main contents highlight however I havent used my Taylor swift photography as she is branching away from country and therefore I felt it wouldnt be suitable to have her as my main attraction for the magazine. In doing this is have also made Taylor swifts image smaller as for the purpose of her branching away from country music and not being considered the biggest artist in this genre as much anymore. As for the placement of the contents heading my magazine follows conventions as it is at the top of the page however as it is central to the page like the pictures it could be considered as challenging conventions

As for my double page spread I have used existing magazines to help follow the traditional conventions of magazines. These include using a drop capital for the first word used in my article as many magazines tend to do this on their double page spreads. I have used over 2 columns as traditional conventions tend to use over a couple of columns in their layout. The alignment of text used on my double age spread could be considered as challenging conventions as it is aligned to the left where as there are many magazines that are justify aligned where the left and right sides of the columns look neat where the words touch the edge. However there are a couple of popular magazines that also havent followed this conventional design. Company magazine doesnt follow the conventional design in the image below.