Key Conventions

Key Conventions

One consistent aspect of this music magazine is that the main title is always in that same position and font size is maintained, eventually increasing the audience familiarity with the magazine. There’s always a colour contrast between the title and the background, placing great emphasis out on the masthead allowing it to be visually clear and dominant on the front cover. The central figure maintains the stereotypical features which relates to the type of genre the magazine is. The Game (rapper) is a current artist whom has sold millions of albums and is well known globally; doing this will increase the attraction level, his casual attire with the hat connotes a laid back and cool image. Usually the main image on the front cover displays a current hip-hop artist (often male).Maintenance of customer loyalty and or increase of awareness is mainly due to the features they include on every issue. This includes the interviews, articles and exclusive pictures of current artists or upcoming concerts; this keeps their target audience interested for as long as possible. I believe their main target audience is for the younger generation and middle aged citizens. On the bottom of the page you can clearly see the bright yellow and black heading referring to their website link; another way of promoting their brand.

On the front cover of this magazine, its common to find the central figures attire to be similar to the stereotypical description (hat/cap, shirt, chain, expensive jacket etc). However in this particular issue it displays snoop dogg dressed in a suit; this is unusual. This connotes a suave and formal image, in addition highlights The Source’s willingness to offer some variety to their magazines occasionally. However this may not appeal to the customers who are solely prefer the usual display images/themes. After thorough observation, in comparison to most issues of this magazine the title lacks the microphone which is normally placed in the middle of the letter ‘O’. This suggests that this issue could be a change in image and attitude, they want to display a formal version; giving the magazine a complete different image.

Typically the background colours of most issues are bright or at a reasonable level of shade, whereas in this issue the dark coloured background is juxtaposed with the masthead, providing it with greater visual domination contrary to any other subheadings on the page. Biggie holding a microphone and also in a formal attire connotes both wealth and a hip hop rapper image, which is the kind of image most rappers want to display so this would attract and/or maintain the hip hop fanatic audience

The contents page has a basic design structure to it but still is effective. Unsurprisingly the colour of the background, (shade of grey and black), lacks complementation for the masthead; i believe they purposely used this colour shade to decrease the emphasis level on the masthead but simultaneously display it clear enough.

More than often you would see or expect a male to be the central figure in this magazine, this time a female is featured. Although half-hearted nudity features further on in the magazine, sexuality is used early on (contents page 2^nd) of a woman in a bikini; for obvious reasons this connotes this image will almost certainly attract more customers into reading further as the target audience is aimed at a males perspective.

In addition, the lack of detail on the page puts emphasis on the female and the text. The content itself is featured at the right hand side of the page, emphasis is automatically on the text due to the lack of textual detail on the page.

The first few pages usually have similar layout structure to this one on the left.  One page solely focuses on the artist and his appearance, facial expression or posture which could suggest many things without actually mentioning it. Then you have the masthead in bold font size, underneath is where the text is laid out.

Brief Analysis of the two pages:

·         Central figure on the left posing with expensive champagne and glass, wearing a suit – presents wealth and luxury

·         Balloons on the background suggest celebration

·         Lacks variety of colours; only black and white which compliments visual aspects in the sense that the text is dominating and clear