Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Research: Codes and Conventions

To help me understand the codes of conventions, I looked at magazines focusing on the same music genre to see the elements they may have in common or anything that changes depending on the magazine itself.


Hip Hop
  • Both magazines have the feature image located in the middle of the magazine taking up the majority of the space of the front cover itself. The mode of address in the magazines is direct as the individuals are looking out to the audience to help draw the attention to the magazine itself and be more appealing. The images themselves also look more angry and bullying, which helps show the magazine is suited for a hip-hop audience.
  • The magazines above both use mastheads located in the top third of the magazine and allow the feature image to cover up some of the text itself.
  • Both magazines use bold colours such as red and black to make the magazines text stand out and also use a variety of large and smaller texts to help indicate it is appealing to a younger audience.
  • The language in both magazines used typical language linked to younger audiences, such as "strips down", "rap beef" and "crew love issue" indicating the audience in which they're both aiming for as these are terms understood by the audience who are buying this magazine.
  • Cover lines are used around the feature image in both of the hip hop magazines above, suggesting that this is a typical convention for this genre. However, XXL magazine has placed a bolder cover line over the feature image to include additional information about the contents linked to the band in the picture.


Indie
  • NME and Q both focus on appealing to the indie music genre. They both use a feature image and smaller images surrounding this image about the inside contents. The mode of address in the magazines images is direct as the individuals are looking out to the audience to help draw the attention to the magazine itself and be more appealing.
  • The magazines both include plenty of cover lines and the language used within both is short and snappy.
  • The magazines both have mastheads located in the upper left hand corner and are surrounded by additional block filled text boxes which make the magazine more eye catching for the audience.
  • Both magazines uses language trying to encourage the reader to buy the magazine to reveal its contents, "FREE MUSIC" and "ALBUM VERDICT!".
  • NME and Q both use upper case writing for their text and they use a variety of colours for this (mainly using red, black and yellow).

Rock
  • Rock Sound and Kerrang both locate their mastheads at the top of their magazine, with an additional cover line in a strip above this for additional contents information.
  • The feature images in both magazines are located in the middle with extra images along the bottom of the magazine with short snappy comments about things inside relating to these images. The mode of address in the magazines feature images is direct as the individuals are looking out to the audience to help draw the attention to the magazine itself and be more appealing.
  • The text in both magazines used have been selected with special fonts which are linked to each magazine. For example, the smashed font used for Kerrangs masthead, is used in every addition and has become their signature font.
  • Both magazines add a PLUS! section to the lower third of the magazine in a list format to help include a lot of information in a mall amount of text (snappy/informative).
I also looked at typical contents of music magazines to help broaden my understanding of what things I should be thinking of including into my magazine design. I've also looked into one contents page (NME) to look at the layout of a magazine in which has a music genre similar to the one in which I intend to use.

Typical features included in a music magazine:
  • interviews with band members/singers
  • album/band/artist reviews
  • upcoming festivals and gigs linked with the genre
  • upcoming release issues (singles, albums, concert tickets)
  • any news linked to bands/artists within the genre
  • posters and competitions


I looked at a contents page from NME. The page is organised and has the articles laid out in a similar format, with articles that appear every month located in the bottom right and the new features going along the side at the top. The big image draws attention to the page and the text is clear and readable. The main colour used is red which is usually associated with NME.


Kerrang's contents page is very different, with a lot more use of pictures with smaller text alongside each one to give the reader more information about the contents. The articles and features within the magazine are located up the right hand side and are put under smaller sub-headings to help the page look more organised. Black and yellow is used throughout the page and this works as they're contrasting colours.

I looked into double page spreads of magazine interviews to help me understand what is expected from this type of article within a well known music magazine.

 NME's double page spread has a large feature image taking up the majority of the left hand page, with the accompanying interview text along the right hand page. The use of the first letter of the interview being in a different font helps the beginning of the interview stand out and appeal to the readers eye. This font was also used for cover lines of snippets of interview to lay on top of the interview, again helping appeal to the audience. The image used uses a direct mode of address in which helps the audience feel connected to the interview itself.


The Kerrang double page spread follows a similar pattern to the one used by NME, with a large image taking up the majority of a page with the interview laid out neatly next to the image. Kerrang however, used a variety of different colours for text and this helps the sub-headings to stand out and look eye-catching to the reader. They have also used a smaller image of the bands album cover to help the interview pages look more appealing and not as full of text; I like this idea of more than one image as I feel it breaks the double page up and looks much more eye-catching.



Throughout my research I have seen that some magazines offer cover mounts, which include demo CDs of music related to the specific genre, with a few tracks on which may be considered as a way of encouraging people to buy the magazine. I thought something like this may be a good idea to consider when I create my final artefact.