2. FRONT COVER – SIMILARITIES TO CODES AND
CONVENTIONS
The front cover I created is similar to real media
products in terms of codes and conventions. Firstly the
layout is the same; the title, date and positioning
statement are at the top, it contains a mid shot of a
posed person using direct address and this image is
surrounded by sub lines and text. Also similar to a
magazine the price, date, issue number, barcode and
price are all pictured bottom right, the barcode is vertical
which is similar to real life magazines as it allows more
room for images and text. Real life magazines also
follow rules such as using buzzwords, I included one in
my front cover to create a more realistic look. I followed
the colour scheme convention, (3-4 colours, generally
primary), and I used blue, yellow and red, as I noticed
red is used a lot on magazine covers.
3. FRONT COVER – CHALLENGED FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS
In terms of the codes and conventions of a magazine
front cover I followed the majority of them, however I
broke a few conventions. I didn‟t follow the convention of
having a unique font on my title that is different than
other text aspects. I realise this is quite an important
convention as it creates a brand identity, however I tried
to keep the text simple. The title I created also slightly
covers the facial aspect of the main picture and the
person pictured is not a “well known” person, which
would be used in a music magazine. The actual stories I
created are also not very ambiguous e.g. “A-levels and
GCSE‟s”, this may not attract the reader to that
particular story.
4. FRONT COVER – CHANGED ASPECTS FROM
PLAN
We produced the finished product on Photoshop, which
meant we had to learn how to use this new form of
media and a few things on my original plan had to be
changed e.g. the clocks in each of the T‟s in the title
„Timetable‟. I had originally done this to create a unique
look for the title like on real magazines, which would be
repeated on the contents page. The photograph I took
for the main image also had to fit to the size of the
canvas, however I couldn‟t fill all the canvas without
there being room for text without it completely
overlapping the facial aspect of the image, this is
different to the codes and conventions of real life
magazines as their main image fills the entire
background of the cover.