In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazines?

For me the most important aspect of my magazine was having a distinctive and individual identity. I did this through the use of graphics that tie in with music. My masthead, 'Melodies Choice', was inspired from my own name. The font used for both this and the other headings throughout my publication was downloaded from 1001freefonts.com. When choosing my main font I used the well known music magazine 'Kerrang' for inspiration. I chose something similar. My font, 'Birth of a Hero', is decorated with circular shapes splashed onto and taken out of each letter. The font style used on Kerrang's logo has a much straighter theme, using lines shot across the lettering. I decided to not copy this font exactly because I felt that mine was more creative, less simple and plain. As my magazine has quite a clear simple layout, using a more artistic font added more texture to the pages.

My original idea for the front cover was based on the majority of music magazines. A main image on top of a plain background. However putting a picture of a musician playing his instrument made my magazine appear more natural than posed. My intention was to clearly show that my magazine is largely based on music, unlike magazines such as 'OK!' that are based on celebrity gossip. However I did still conform to the typical magazine front cover layout as I have included a masthead, headings with further information below, detailing the contents of the magazine. I also have a barcode situated at the bottom of the page, along with a main image and a smaller image that is attached to an article heading. I did not challenge the already recognisable contents and layout of a magazine front cover as it would have confused customers and therefore may not acquire popularity within my target audience.

When researching contents pages I found that both 'Kerrang' and 'NME' had very similar designs, cramming lots of images and words on to the one page. I felt that this looked very messy and found it confusing to read. I decided to design a much more tidier looking contents page to ensure that mine was readable. I also did this to attain originality instead of following the steps of the poorly laid out contents pages of others. To provide such clarity I presented my contents in a list format. This creates a well organised appearance as well as being straightforward to read. I have included an album cover to make the page look more interesting. It also acts as an advertisement (charged to the record company at a premium rate) of the album itself, linking to the reviews inside.

Instead of doing a double page spread on one artist, I chose to do two different features. The first one, 'Dizzie hosts youth awards', is similar in layout to the majority of magazines, including a title, columns for the article itself, a main image, and blown up text quoting the subject of the article. I decided to keep this page very simple to complement the amount of images on the following page. I felt that although presented neatly, too many pictures at once wouldn't resemble the type of magazine I am trying to represent. I wanted to get away from the cluttered layout of magazines such as 'Kerrang'.