Student Copy

Magazine Construction

What you get on front covers

Masthead

Kicker

Cover Line

Secondary Lead

Plug

Graphic Feature

Tagline

Feature Article Photo

Anchorage

Flash

Menu StripBar CodeDate Line

Headline

Web Link

‘Mixmag’s masthead is very simple and easy to recognize. It has a very clean and minimalistic style that goes well with the house style of the rest of the magazine and the magazine’s theme of electronic dance music.

The interaction between the anchorage and the feature article photo is very important. In this case, the feature article photo includes both members of the band to link itself with the ‘duo’ part of the anchorage. They also somewhat have a look of professional criminals in their attire, stance, and gaze with one of the members having a direct mode of address. This professional criminal look links well with the ‘powerful duo’ section of the anchorage.

Some of the language used on the cover such as ‘Corrupt the youth’ and ‘Tomorrow’s world’ leads readers to believe that the magazine focusses on subjects on the leading edge and contains a lot of opinions that are against certain causes. For example, on other covers from this magazine, on numerous occasions there has been anti – record label language.

I think the most important aspect on this magazine cover is the photography. It sums up the overall mood for the magazine cover quite well. It also sells the headline very well with the hard edge serious looking band members portraying the ideas of the people involved with the dance music and club scene.

Conventions Notes

The masthead is very up front in telling you the main focus of the magazine, it is simply the name of the artist or group in question, in this case, Chase and Status. This means that the fans of their music will be instantly drawn to this on the store shelf.

The Anchorage stating that they are the ‘All Conquering Bass Duo’ makes them sound powerful and important. It leads onto a list of things covered in the article and hints at the fact that the duo are providing their own insight and opinions during the article.

In this example, there are not many graphic features to speak of but there are the sections with the text overlaid on top which gives a hard edge between the foreground and the background making the text very clear.

The language used is very colloquial and casual, use of questions is prominent and there is a certain amount of cockiness to the style of writing that goes along well with the direct mode of address of one of the band members.

The fonts and colours give a very professional feel in some ways with all the fonts being professional looking but the colours being quite bright and contrasting, not quite as extreme as the neon colour scheme that genres leaning more towards rave culture would have had, but the colours are significantly more aggressive than what you would have in, for example, a jazz magazine.

How front covers are conceived and laid out

COLOUR – The colour scheme definitely changes wildly with every issue, this one has a lot of blacks, greys and orange tones whereas the other one was mostly blue and green. I think it’s done to match the style of the artist on the front cover.

FONTS – It looks like around 3 fonts are used, interestingly the one used on the headline on both is a different font to the rest of the cover which is something to keep in mind.

STYLE – The look is interesting on the second one, there is a use of an enigma in the anchorage by asking weather she can achieve something and this contrasts with the very confident direct mode of address used. Perhaps it’s trying to convey that that the industry does not trust in Annie Mac be she herself is confident still.

USE OF SPACE - The first one has a conventional headline position in the middle third, but the second one has an unconventional placement with it being in between top left and middle left. This is done so that they could put Annie Mac’s face in the centre and reinforce the direct mode of address and the style they were going for by doing that.

CONCLUDE – I think that this magazine is designed to be somewhat loud and boistrious with lots of ambiguous questions on the front cover and lots of bold statements and exclamation marks. However, the second one may appeal to someone who is a little older and has been on the scene longer compared to the first one, there are fewer buzzwords and a greater focus on what’s actually in the magazine.

House Style & Design Notes