From my magazine research of three music magazines and two fashion magazines I have found out about what magazine conventions and techniques they use. All of the magazines I looked at had a masthead positioned at the top of the page, I am going to use this convention for when creating my magazine cover. All of the main images where positioned in the middle of the page in the centre with the article titles positioned around it. The music magazine main images were of band from the music genre, the fashion magazines had one person as the main image, who I am assuming were models due to them being fashion magazines. All had a barcode on the magazine cover that was mainly positioned on the bottom corner apart from the online versions of the magazine. The article titles were positioned on the magazine cover around the main image, they show the articles within the magazine. These were written in different fonts, colours and sizes to make certain articles stand out. The two pop magazines I looked at used bright and pastel type colours on the cover to make it stand out, attract readers and are suitable for the target audience of pop magazines who are mainly teens of both genders. The colours used in the two fashion magazines I looked at were grey, white and variations of purple.
The contents pages use multiple pictures, whilst sticking to the colour scheme used on the front cover. They contain information on where in the magazine the article can be found, this is shown by the name of the article title and the page number it is on. Most magazine contents pages categories the articles commonly separating them into regulars of regular magazine articles and features of articles that are exclusive to this issue of the magazine. Some of the pop magazines I looked at used more categories including beauty and gossip as these magazines are target at teens who are interested in these articles. The numbers of the article pages are mainly odd due to a new article starting on the left side of the page and carrying onto the right to create a double page spread. The numbers are in a random order that are not ascending as the articles will be in different places within the magazine depending on what category they are in.
The double page spreads are articles spread across two pages with page numbers in the bottom corners, the Mojo magazine I looked at had one large picture on the left side of the page and the article on the right, Top of the pops had one large image on the top half of the page and smaller pictures on the right for a different article topic. Shout used one large image on each page and then smaller pictures on each page as well. All double page spreads had a title in large font to show what the magazine was about and wrote the article in columns. The colour schemes were consistent throughout the whole of the magazine.
My magazine research has helped me to decide what magazine conventions I need to use to make my magazine look like a magazine. I will use this research to help me layout my magazine and include magazine conventions. After looking at different music magazine genres I like the style of pop magazines so will consider creating a pop magazine. I like the purple, grey and white colour scheme used in the two fashion magazines I looked at so I am planning on incorporating this into my magazine.
