Looking at the conventions and themems in music magazines
This is an essay I have done on the conventions of magazines.
For my choice of magazines I have chosen to look at The Big Cheese and Q. They are both music magazines.
Predictions of cell layouts
The masthead of these magazines are very different, The Big Cheese sounds like the target audience is considerably younger than Q which seems to sound more mature and simplistic. The convention of a magazine mean s that the most head it most commonly at the top left of the magazine. It is important that readers have been conditioned to look at a magazine in a certain way, this way they can easily see the main points of the page. The masthead of The Big Cheese is layered behind the photos and set to blend with the background. This shows that the reader is already familiar with the title and the focus is more on the images. On the other hand Q magazines mast head is layered in front of the photo, this makes it more recognisable.
The headlines of The Big Cheese are more freely advertised, they are dotted about the page. With the majority of the information being listed band names. Whereas on Q magazine the headlines are uniform and inform the viewer of the content. In some ways this aspect is very different; however the concept of headlines being set on either the left third or the right third of the page keeps the structure similar.
The headlines are also a clear way of judging the number of cell columns and rows. The Big Cheese seems to have considerably more cells than Q. I think that this is because the more cells there are the more freedom the designer has to play around with composition and positioning. Q magazine, judging by the headlines, has very few cells. I think that for the image of this magazine it is important to keep the image neat, organised, minimalistic and informative. The same idea applies when talking about the importance of the layout.
Layout design is important for the image of the magazine because, as demonstrated by The Big Cheese. Their target image is important for selling the magazine is it is with any magazine. The big Cheese is aimed at youth interested in rock music, gigs, bands, off the wall clothing, bright colours and possibly tattoos of a particular style. The layout has to suit these factors in order to draw in the selected audience. These factors also apply when selling Q and any other magazine in fact. In the case of Q magazine, the target audience they are selling too is going to be people who are perhaps more alternative and less mainstream. Their target audience is people who are interested in traditional artists who have influence music, this would depict the audience as being more open minded and knowledgeable. The audience is also portrayed as being interested in details, and therefore are not only interested in the music but also the history. From these conclusions we can see that the audience is going to be slightly older than the readers of The Big Cheese.
The top banner and foot banner of the front page are significant. They give the viewer an idea of the style of the magazine i.e. bands, offers etc. The Big Cheese has a top banner which is advertising the magazine to audience of people who are interested in a specific band. And the foot banner is suggesting an idea of music the magazine is focussing on. Q magazine in contrast doesn’t have a foot banner; however it does have a top one, advertising this particular issue as ‘Lennon’s 70th birthday collectors’ issue’. This top banner would shows that this magazine boasts that it worthy of being a collector’s edition.
I have noticed that the bar code is in the same place on both of these magazines; I think that this shows that this positioning is an important factor of a magazine layout. One thing that is significantly different on each of the magazines is the pictures. Although they are both in the background and have text on top, the message and feel each image gives off are quite contrasting. On Q the image is a close up shot of well known faces and a classic black and white familiar photo. This makes the audience feel more involved with the contents. On the other hand, The Big Cheese has images on the front cover of a familiar band, but the difference is, they are in a mid shot. This makes people feel distanced from the people. Along with this apparent distance of the shot, the expressions of the three men are intimidating and not as welcoming as the image on Q.
