Front cover/ contents page Planning notes/ sketches

Front cover for Priestley college magazine Planning notes

• The Masthead for my college magazine shows the title of the magazine to be "Priestley Q" standing for "Priestley Quarterly".On the inside of the magazine this will be abbreviated even more and will just be PQ.
• Above the masthead i have put a Skyline "cut off for half price anything at the wicked!" having this at the top of my magazine gives the students of Priestley college an extra incentive to buy the magazine.
• The Main Image will be in the centre of the front cover and will feature a student of Priestley college. I have chosen to have the main image cover part of the masthead as students will already know what the magazine is called just from the first few letters.
• On the right hand side just underneath the masthead, i have chosen to put the Issue date. Having this on the magazine will allow students to see if they are buying the up to date magazine and not a old issue.
• On the either side of the main image will be Cover lines which will correspond to more minor or smaller articles inside the article. they will show brief information about the articles before giving the page number that these articles are on.
• Around the front cover (two at the bottom, one at the side) there will be Puffs of information. these will be just little bits about offers in this magazine and in college that could benefit the students.
• And in the bottom right hand corner of the front cover i will put a barcode. I'm putting it there because if you look at every magazine for sale they have there barcode positioned  there.

Front cover

Contents page for Priestley college magazine Planning notes

• The Masthead on the contents page consists of the title of the magazine in the top left corner, and the word contents so students know what page this is.Keeping the masthead simple so i don't over complicate the layout.
• The way the contents page will be Layed Out is in columns. Having it layed out like this again keeps it simple for the reader and they can clearly see what pages the articles they want to read are on.
• I have placed more than one image o n the contents page so i can promote more articles to the reader. but i have used a larger image for the main article and smaller images for the minor articles and again the pictures will be layed out in columns.
• Not every page number will be listed. only the start of articles and maybe quizzes will be listed. also these pages will be grouped together with relevance
• Next to the page numbers there will be article title and little bit of information

Contents page

Magazine contents page conventions

The conventions of magazine contents pages are:

When looking at magazine contents pages you will see again, like magzine front covers that they all have the same or similar conventions and the layout of the page is also similar in every magazine. magazines have to do this otherwise a reader may struggle to understand the information thats on the page if the layout is complicated.


Kerrang conventions
-Masthead
-All contain images
-More than one image
-Bigger image usually means its a feature article
-Page numbers shown
-Simple style so its easy to read
-Information listed in columns
-Article titiles
-Article description
-Issue information
-Images related to stories
-House style
-Issue date

Looking at another magazine contents page you will see similar or the exact same conventions.


Conventions

-Masthead
-More than one image
-larger image for the main article
-Smaller image for the minor article
-Article information
-Certain page numbers
-Page numbers arranged into revelant sections
-Issue information
-Information listed in columns
-Layout makes it easy to read
-House style
-Issue date


Teen vogue conventions

-Masthead
-Listed in columns
-Only certain page numbers
-Article titles
-Article information
-Large image for main article
-Femine colours because of target audience
-House style
-Easy to read layout
-Issue date

Again i have shown completely different magazine contents pages, but when you look at them and the conventions that they share you notice that in many ways they are quite similar E.G. layout and the way the information is presented on the page are pretty much the same. and they all contain images specific to the articles they have written about. again magazines have to do this so the customers can easily understand what they are trying to get across.

Magazine front cover conventions

The conventions of magazine front covers are:



-Masthead
-Large image in the centre of the page
-Coverlines either side of the image
-Often famous stars on the front
-Image of star is usually medium close up
-Barcodes in the bottom right corner
-Background often plain to make image stand out more
-Well known brands cover some of the masthead with main image
-Issue information
-Colours stand out off the page
-
What some of these conventions mean.

-Masthead = Title of the magazine, usually at the top of the page
-Coverlines = little snippits of articles that are inside the magazine
-Puffs =


Magazines follow these conventions for the front covers because there target audience and general public can see just by the way the front cover is laid out that its a magazine. without these conventions people may struggle to identify the magazine for what it is. Just looking at the image i have posted above you can see that kerrang follow the basic conventions of a magazine front cover. these being that they have a large image in the centre of the page. The image is of a famous person "Billy joe" and they are able to cover part of the masthead because they are a well known brand. either side of the image they have a few coverlines and issue information to give the reader a preview of what will be on the inside. finally they have the barcode in the bottom right hand corner of the page like every other magazine.

In class we looked at a number of different magazine covers. these are the notes i made on the different magazine covers and the conventions that these magazine covers follow.


GQ magazine Conventions

-Masthead - partly covered by image
-Medium close image
-Image in the centre of the page
-Image is of a famous person
-Coverlines
-Masculine colours because its a male magazine
-Barcode in the bottom right corner
-Plain background and writing standout more
-


Company magazine conventions

-Masthead - partly covered by image
-Coverlines either side of the image
-Issue information
-Medium close up image
-Image of a famous person
-Femine colours because of the target audience
-Barcode in the bottom right corner
-Image in the centre of the page
-Plain background so that the iamge and the writing stand out more

NME Magazine conventions

-Masthead
-Famous star for image
-image in the centre of the page
-Coverlines either side
-Different background, means image isnt as pronounced
-Barcode in bottom right corner
-Issue information
-More neutral colours because its a different target audience
-Close up image



Good Housekeeping Magazine conventions

-Masthead
-Medium close up of image
-Famous star in image
-Image partly covers up masthead because brand is well known
-Coverlines either side
-Barcode right hand side
-Feminine colours to go with target audience
-Issue information
-Image in the centre


Even though i have shown completely different magazines above. Most of them have the same or simlar conventions. Magazine companies do this because the general public are used to seeing this layout on frontcovers. if a magazine was to come out with a completely different layout to the ones already out there, it would probably struggle as people wouldnt know what it was from just looking at it.