1. Forms and conventions.

The genre of my music magazine is a mix between “Screamo, Happy hardcore, soft rock, indie and rap.” I chose to use this genre as I felt that there was a gap in the market for it; there were magazines for each of the individual music types, but none of all the types together. My magazine is called “BRUTAL” I called it this because Scene Kids often pose for Myspace pictures with their hands like a claw and a caption saying “….. is brutal!” They also tend to look directly into the camera. This is where I took the idea from for my front cover image.

The layout is different to most other magazines, for instance, they would have a set colour scheme such as red, white and black, whereas mine has a much more varied colour scheme. The colours used for the coverlines and masthead are random, but are always on a black background. I did this because “Scene Kids” tend to wear, and are attracted to, bright colours contrasted with black. Once I had found bright colours for the masthead and coverlines I used them randomly throughout all three products.

I took a few ideas from other magazines, such as the white strips behind the coverlines on the front cover are taken from various copies of NME and Kerrang. I used these because they made the colours stand out even more and broke up the black beackground. The font I used on the double page spread for “Louise Bacon gets down and dirty in our exclusive interview!” was similar to the masthead of NME.

I put the ripped label on the front cover to make the free CD stand out more. I used the ripped label effect because it gives the magazine a more used and abused, careless, old image. It makes the magazine look different to a typical “glossy”

For the main cover image I chose to have Louise looking straight at the camera and not smiling so she looks like she has an attitude. “Scene Kids are often seen in public places looking intimidating. It is also a way of scaring the other magazines, in a way of sort of telling other magazines that “Brutal” is the new kid in town and they had better watch out!

The contents page is quite different to other contents pages in magazines, mainly because of the layout of it, and again the colours.

I chose to have my items that are in the magazine follow the shape round the photo, as it is different to the usual columns of titles that are in regular contents pages. I also used the bright seemingly random colours on the background, as they would still be eye-catching. The white lines under the titles are to draw attention to each one and to break up the black background more. I felt this was more important for the contents page as I had edited the picture so that it also has a black background. This in turn made the photo seem more electric and vivid. I drew the bright pink shape and filled it with the same pink that is in the masthead on the front cover as this gives it a direct link, also, using the masthead on the contents page gives a link.

For the double page spread I chose to use the bright pink from the Masthead as the background as this again, gives it a direct link, both to the front cover and the contents page. I decided to alternate the black on white and white on black, as it seemed more visually interesting, however, once I had used the black and white, I found it needed further variation so I took a yellow colour from the photo for the first box. I then chose a purple font for the interview as I though the purple would be easily visible over any colour, however, once I had started writing the text for the interview I found that the font was hard to read in some places. To overcome this I used white font for the text overlapping as the purple was hard to read from a distance. The main photo was edited to be the same style as the photo for the contents page and front cover as it gave the magazine a definite theme

I have stuck with the general conventions of a music magazine, with all the bright colours and photoshopped photos. I have also included some Polaroid style photos on the double page spread as a lot of Scene Kids are interested in photography and retro-style things. I played around with the contrast and brightness on some of the images as this makes the images stand out more. It also makes the colours much brighter and fit in more with the rest of the magazine style. I chose to set out my magazine slightly differently with the colours and the photos as it is rebelling against other types of magazines, and not conforming to the regular “glossy” but it different, which is how Scene Kids would think of themselves.