After thorough research into the rap and RnB music magazine industry I had an idea of what I wanted my magazine to look like. I wanted to keep some conventions of music magazines apparent in my magazine to evoke a rap and RnB genre, however I also wanted to challenge some of these conventions to make my magazine more unique and stand out to my target audience.
Although I tried to challenge some conventions of Rap and RnBmagazines, I did follow some as many when they have males on the cover they tend to use eithera medium or close-up shot. (shown by vibe, XXL and The Source) This differs to when a female is on the cover, where they use long-shots mostly to show their bodies. (shown by Vibe and Q)
Front Cover
My magazine front cover was mainly inspired by other RnB and Rap magazines shown above. I tried to vary the amount of challenging and following the conventions of music magazines so that my cover will be recognized as a rap/RnB magazine AND look original.
Masthead
When thinking of a name for my magazine I had to come up with a simple name that will be remembered which was still original. I had a list of possible names and 'The Mix' was voted most, which was convenient for me as it was also my favorite choice. I believe 'The Mix' is effective as it can mean a variety of music will be included, as well as it being slang for a song.
The masthead I created for my magazine differs to the others as the font is more rugged and distorted, where as other Rap/RnB magazines use a bold and smooth font. I believe this font challenges the conventions of Rap magazines as the title may look more like an Indie or Rock magazine, however I wanted this so that it is unique to the 'normal' house styles used. I followed the conventions of Rap and RnB magazines by using red, because it is vibrant and stands out from the background easily. I also used a colour gradient from a bright red down to a darker red, I have seen this used by Vibe magazine and therefore used it on mine, as it follows a Rap look and in general looks more professional.
Cover Photo
The photo I used for my front cover follows conventions of Rap and RnB music magazines. This is shown as my model is male, looking at the camera and is wearing a black suit. Through-out my research I have found many Rap magazines use a close-up or medium shot of a male, this may be because their target audience is young males, or because most rap artists are male over female.
I chose my model to look at the camera for my cover photo, this is because it draws the audience to the magazine and therefore should persuade them to buy it.
The actual photo was taken in black and white. I done this as it would emphasize the red text, and other covers I have looked at use black and white, I believe the black and white also looks professional, as the photo looks subtle, and the text is bold. (This is seen on the cover of Vibe magazine)
I wanted the model to wear a black suit, white shirt and black tie, as well as sun glasses. I believe the black suit gives a more sophisticated image, which will hopefully make my magazine look more sophisticated to the target audience. The sun glasses had to be edited slightly, as you could see me in the reflection of them, I cloned the black area of the glasses and removed the reflection. This makes theglasses look extra dark, and therefore offers a more mysterious image to the model, which may entice the audience to read more into the magazine.
The background of my photo was originally a blue wall in my house, due to me wanting a black and white cover it did not matter as much. This meant I did not have to edit the background as many other magazines do, I like the background how it began because it is not a solid white, and has depth to it. This does not follow the conventions of music magazines as they usually use a solid colour.
Cover Lines
The conventions of most rap and RnB music magazines convey only a small number of colours used for the cover lines. I followed this as I believe using just a few colours connotes the colour theme and gives the cover a more professional look. I chose to use black, white and red for the text on my cover, this is because I wanted the reader to see the colour theme that will be used in the magazine through out straight away. During my research I came across many Rap magazines that use black, white and red, this was another reason to follow the convention as it would help mymagazine look more involved in the Rap and RnB genre. (Black, white and red colours used in The Source and XXL)
Above are other Rap and RnB music magazines that have used black, white and red for their cover lines. With my cover lines on the far left I believe I have followed the conventions of Music magazines effectively as the red clearly shows what the content underneath it is. Each one also has a similar background colour to mine, which ranges from white to dark gray.
The position of the cover lines is also an important factor of the front cover, as they need to be easily seen and not crowd the page. This can be seen from Vibe here and The Source here. I believe I have used this convention as most of my text is around the model, this has been done so the reader can still see the artist and the text easily.
Many music magazines also use different size font for their cover lines, this shows importance to the reader as the large text is likely to be most interesting. I have used this convention slightly, as my front cover has larger text showing "The Ed-Master" and smaller text showing other artist names, this is done so that the audience see "The Ed-Master" first, as it is the Unique Selling Point of the magazine.
Usual Elements To Magazines
This section shows what every magazine usually needs on the front cover. I have found that any magazine always needs a barcode, price and date/issue number. These are basic elements, however if they are not included the magazine will not look genuine. Therefore I had to follow the convention of all magazines to make mine look like one sold in a shop.
Contents
Before creating my contents page I researched many Rap music magazines to find inspiration. However I could not find one that appealed to me, I looked at the 2008 October edition of Q magazine online and thought the contents page was very simple, but very professional at the same time. I therefore designed my contents following their convention of music magazine contents pages.
As I had designed my contents to be 3 columns large finding the Q contents really helped, as they used a photo which took up 2 columns and still made the page look attractive. I originally planned to have a photo also filling 2 columns, but only the top halves of them. I used a similar layout to their contents, by having one long column, and two shorter columns which go together to form one large area. Where they added 'Review' here I decided to add a 'Features' area, which shows what page the cover lines from the front cover will be in the magazine.
I also developed their convention by adding one more photo to the page, this was of another model which acted as another music artist. I decided to keep my photos black and white to keep the house style created on the cover. Where the Q contents has the date, I inserted the 'Subscribe Now' text. I done this so that the reader will be persuaded to buy it more, and also to fill the area as before it was blank and boring! I had one line out of the 3 in red so it breaks the text up, and makes it flow easier. I like to think I developed their convention by decreasing the opacity of the white rectangle showing who the artist is, I done this because I had it pure white at first, and it did not look professional as it is a large shape, and distracted my eye from the photo. I therefore made it more subtle, as the decrease in opacity still allows the black text to be seen over the suit but does not fill the bottom right of the photo.
