Evaluation Question 1

Conventions
Conventions in general is the standard way in which something is done, when concerning music magazines it is generally describing the layout of the magazine. Conventions are useful for giving your reader a familiar layout, as all magazines that follow conventions will use the same base layout. However, ignoring conventions and designing something completely different may appeal to specific audiences but it is slightly more risky than following conventional layouts. For the most part, magazines will be conventional in layout, how far a magazine will stray from conventions is defined by the subject, audience and producers.

Magazine Front Cover Concept #1, a photo by Tyler Curtis Media on Flickr.

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With my music magazine I have worked around the genre of "Metal" and "Rock" music. Which are generally perceived by people to quite rebellious and violent. The style also often features (design wise) quite dark colour schemes and rough designs rather than other genres which will have quite clean artwork. For this reason I have chosen to use the title "Scorched" which represents something that is not perfect as it has been burnt and darkened. The font I used for this, also represented the word itself, it uses cracked black font with an orange fire-like glow surrounding it. The text also features sections of silver colour, which represents metal.

Magazines which influenced my own design are Kerrang and Metal Hammer. Kerrange more influenced layout rather than anything else, I worked most of my layout around previous issues of Kerrang, however design itself is much like that of Metal Hammer, but less extreme in comparison of content.

Metal Hammer example
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3302/3231944310_fceb9ebb01.jpg

Kerrang example
http://www.isubscribe.co.uk/images/covers/uk/5/69/large/kerrang-1287194449327.jpg

Contents page - Music Mag, a photo by Tyler Curtis Media on Flickr.

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Photos
For the images I used in my magazine, I had decided to create a metal based band and because of this I wanted all or most of my band members to be wearing dark colours, preferably black. The lack of bright colours and plain background also helped the people within the images to stand out more. I decided to use no props in my images, just the band members themselves, I had considered using real instruments in the images but this was not possible after asking around for loan of equipment. In terms of cropping and editing of images, there was very little in general, some images may have had the tops trimmed slightly or have been darkened, but other than that the images are in their original condition.

Media Double Page, a photo by Tyler Curtis Media on Flickr.

Click on the above image to be redirected to my flickr image