Drafting and Planning

A music magazine follows a rule with codes and conventions, this usually consist of masthead, cover lines, cover star credit, date and price, barcode, main cover line and a cover star image. The masthead usually appears over the very top of the front page of the magazine, this is usually in capitals or non capitals but in a very bold large font, to make it stand out and evident to the reader the brand of the magazine. The cover lines are then placed around the edges of the front page, and are usually in a smaller sized font to the cover line, although they are important and need to stand out, they don't need to be as big. The cover lines are then wrapped by the cover star image which usually appears in the centre of the page covering almost the whole of the front page. This is because if its a popular artist, the focus of the magazine needs to be drawn to them, this grasps the readers attention more, as the person may be a fan of this artist. The date and price is placed differently in most magazines, some magazines have it along the top right of the page or the bottom right or maybe above the barcode. The date and price of the magazine is usually a very small font, this is because if the magazine is quite pricey, they don't want to draw attention to the price as this might put customers off buying the magazine. The barcode of the magazine depends also and changes each time and lastly the main cover line and cover star credit usually appears below the image of the cover star or at the side of them. By researching generic conventions of music magazines, has developed my knowledge and understanding of how to apply these in my own work, and how to attract my target audience.