EVALUATION: Working with existing forms and conventions- Reworking the familiar

One of the most important parts of my coursework was the research behind each task as it allowed me to see the frequent conventions and industries ‘Must’ when creating a magazine, especially the layout of it all.
I believe my school/ college magazine is quite an accurate reflection of not only a professional magazine but is based around the industry conventions such as the placement of titles and taglines and the basic layout of what it should look like. I also felt that the pictures taken where all fit for purpose and iconic in their own light, which is important as you do not want to give a wrong impression to a target reader when you were not intending to.
Through my research I also believe that my music magazine came out a lot better than I ever planned for it to turn out. By looking at different music magazines I gained the knowledge and understanding to construct a very accurate piece of work that tied in with many of the industry conventions but yet had my own originality to it. This is important as I wanted my magazine to stand out because I learnt that all magazines follow the same conventions but they all have something that makes them unique to each other, even though their target audiences are different. For example, you would never find the title at the bottom of a page. All those things are basics of the layout for any magazine. This I made sure was evident in my coursework. Another I found out about was the pyramid layout, where there is more writing at the bottom of the page that the top so the bulk of the image is clear and stands out. Linking with this the colour schemes are essential as that is one of the factors to why cover stand out. I chose a black and red and white colour scheme as I think that they complement each other perfectly and create a stand out effect when utilized correctly. I also made sure that the layout of all my pages were correct and fitted all the boxes of the media conventions for magazines
Throughout the course of both the preliminary and main tasks I have learn a lot about mode of address and use of imagery used by magazine to appeal to their target audience and what they want their target audience to get out of their pictures. For example, through research I found that mode of address is very important to capture the target reader. Gossip magazines have a more informal mode of address and more exposed pictures of celebrities are iconic where as a magazine like SAGA is more formal and the pictures are aimed more for the target reader. I found the same thing with music magazines of different genres. Rock/heavy metal magazines will use raw language whilst still maintaining the right level of formality and mode of address. The pictures in most music magazines are of famous artists and therefore the pictures are generally iconic as the images are showing off that person. The images in music magazines also have directed poses and the celebrity in that photo all coordinated right down to their clothing and props. This lead me to learn that every little micro as well as macro element of magazine designing is all thought about and tested. I put this into practice by taking iconic photos of my models the leave an impression that they are all what is said in the picture. Also by reading other interviews in different magazines I wrote mine as a very free flowing story conversation as I thought it was fitter for purpose than doing a scripted interview. Overall, my research was essential as it aided me in the sparking of ideas and in the the basics of do's and don'ts in the industry conventions.