Conventions I Will Follow

Masthead - My masthead will be located at the top of my magazine in the middle like most music magazines. I haven't completely decided on a font yet but I plan for it to be modern and a serif font which goes against the usual masthead convention of the country music genre e.g  Country Weekly is a sans serif font - very traditional and simple. I am going to aim for my masthead font to be more modern and interesting e.g Country Music.

Slogan - I have decided not to include a slogan on my magazine because through my country genre research I have discovered that no Country magazines have included one.

Anchorage Text - All country music magazines include anchorage text. I will be including this on my front cover and possibly placing it to the left where the audiences eyes will first look due to the Z-rule.

Price - The price of my magazine will be located in the very bottom right - the last place the eyes look. I hope that people would have made up their minds about buying the magazine before they reach the price. If the price is slightly expensive I will make the font size smaller but if it's cheap then I will make the font size larger.

Main Image - I haven't decided fully on my location but have chosen my model. I have chosen my model because she is tall and has blonde hair - this seems to be the typical look of a country girl.

Barcode- My barcode will be located in the bottom right corner of the front page as this is the least important part of the magazine.

Sell Lines- My sell lines will be located down the left and right sides. The main titles will be in bold and slightly larger and the little info paragraphs will be in a smaller font. The style of font will be a more traditional simple as to make it easier for the readers to read.

Layout- The layout of my front page wont be very busy as I feel this will overwhelm people and steer them away from the magazine.

Puff- I wont be including a puff on my magazine as from my research I have noted that no country music magazines have a puff.

Colour Scheme- From my poll results I have decided to use the colour scheme pastel blue, pastel yellow and pastel pink.

Poll Results

These are the results from the poll I included on my blog. From this I have decided that my colour scheme will be pastel blue, pastel yellow, and pastel pink. 

I think people voted for these colours because there are very natural and fit in very well with the conventions of a Country Music magazine.

My Magazine

I have decided that my magazine is going to be within the Country genre. I have decided this because I have done a lot of research into country magazines and now know and understand the typical conventions and layouts of a country magazine. Also I have researched into country music artists and how they are represented through the magazines which you can find on my blog post named Which Genre Have I Chosen And Why?. My audience is going to be girls and boys aged 14+ because although music magazine's tend to have a target audience of mostly boys country magazines have a good target audience of girls due to the amount of females that read this genre of magazine. I was going to aim my magazine at an audience of mainly boys but after some more research into just country music magazines I have changed my mind and decided to aim it more at both genders now if not slightly more towards females. Due to my target audience being predominantly young people I have decided to make the price reasonable because at this age students don't have access to much extra money.

Locations I have considered

Back Garden - I have considered this location because through my research I have found that most photoshoots based in Country Music Magazines, which is the genre I am going for, are involving grass and an outdoor space e.g

Both pictures are from Country Music Magazine photoshoots and both have an outdoors background with a natural feel to it.

Park - Another location I have considered is the park because this is also outdoors and will get the grass and natural feel. This is a very typical location for the Country genre. 

Both of these magazines are from the Country genre. By looking at these both I have gotten idea's about what my Country magazine front cover should look like to fit in with the typical conventions.

Idea's for front cover

From my front cover magazine analysis I have learnt that the publishers don't really tend to focus on the mise en scéne with the front cover image and mostly on the artists clothing and facial expression. This has helped me decide that although the background that I choose is extremely important I should focus a bit more on my cover artist.

Grid Content Analysis

Country Weekly - Double Page Spread

This is a double page spread from Country Weekly magazine. It covers the style section of the magazine where double page spreads are usually for interviews with artists or photoshoots.
The double page spread is covered in images making it automatically more interesting. The images all link in with the double page spread article but each are different. Each image shows a country artist representing what the aticle is talking about. The font of the article is a typical plain sans serif font that makes the article easy to read. The way the page is layed out makes it draw you in as due to the z rule your eyes first look at the top left where you see a fancy heading in a nice font and is coloured also the image underneath makes you want to read on more. The colour scheme is lilac/purple/pink which is very girly - the double page spread it covering corsets and fashions so the target audience would be girls.