Drafting and Planning: Codes and Conventions Task

Our task was to put the main codes and conventions onto these magazine cover images.

I wanted to incorporate some gold in the coverlines in relation to the gold necklace the coverstar is wearing. Since this magazine is based on R'n'B and Hip-Hop I thought of using some coverlines in relation to them genres. I created a selling line for this magazine using the masthead 'M' as a stimulus. This task has not only helped me with where I could place the cover lines, but what I could write for them and how to wrap them around the image as well as which words to highlight with a different colour, etc. I enjoyed the process of layering and arranging the cover lines on the front cover, and it's fun to look at the cover star, guess what their article could be about and let your creativity flourist. 

For this magazine, I had to make an identity for this band. 'Vis-a-Vis' means 'counterpart' or 'companion' and I thought, since this is a group, it suited well, especially with the saxophone and electric guitar in the image, suggesting this group being a unique blend of rock and jazz. This particular cover helped me to understand that with so many members of a band, especially with a long angle shot like this, it's hard to make the main cover line stand out, and it's harder to find a colour to suit it when they're all a range of colours. The large group seems a bit overwhelming in this shot, so I knew not to do that. Looking back on this, it's also easy to see lots of negative space; not that you should clutter every inch of a cover with text, but too much negative space makes the cover lines look rather lost. So they ought to be placed around the cover with purpose. 

For this magazine cover, I used the mysterious tone it gives off often suggesting secrets in the coverlines and 'exposure' in the selling line. I used white and red in the coverlines to relate to the masthead. The font used being 'Courier' also gave an eerie, distorted effect. I am especially pleased with this cover. I love the selling line an it's use of the 'X' and how I use the theme of X throughout. I also like the subtle variation of font sizes I used to make certain cover lines stand out more than others. I think this front cover is very successful, especially with linking the cover lines to the masthead and photo.

For this magazine cover, I kept the theme of the orange house style from the masthead. If I tried to use black or cyan blue, it'd just blend into the coverstar image. I related the main coverline to the zombie-like cover star. I found it hard to work with this front cover. The cover star is so close to the camera that you have no choice but to smother her with the cover lines. I know to make sure there's an even distribution of cover star and space for cover lines etc, or else the front cover will either be very limited in content, or too overwhelming and cluttered.

I found it quite hard to write many coverlines on this magazine cover since I didn't want to be covering up any of the coverstars too much. I didn't like the blocking of the cover stars since it didn't provide much room for the coverlines, so I'll take heed from this. I'll make sure I use a photo which I can do much with and can still use as many cover lines as I'd like to show the audience what my magazine is all about!

I found this task very helpful in terms of layout of a magazine cover, so I'll definitely use this post as inspiration when doing my own magazine cover.

I found this previous blog post very helpful in terms of how to lay out these codes and conventions too:
http://www.daniellepalmermedia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/drafting-and-planning-nme-creative-task.html