Year 10 MUSIC MAGAZINE

PREP You have uploaded your music magazine cover, which is a work in progress. For prep tonight, continue to improve it, implementing the critique ideas that I gave you in class today. Upload Version 2, so that the new work is displayed alongside the previous work.

CLASSWORK

We are doing this work for two purposes:
In case you pick the print brief next year and want to make a magazine;

To answer exam q.5 in the exam 02 MUSIC and NEWS, which asks you to compare one MOJO cover and one unexpected cover, and goes like this:

5. How far is media language used differently in Extracts 1 and 2 to reflect genre conventions? (10 marks)

We look at each pupil's magazine and draw attention to the ways in which the 'media language' of the music magazine genre has been successfully created. Media language =  layout, colour, font / typography, image

Genre conventions for serious music magazines such as our exam board's text, MOJO, and similarly 'serious' publications like WIRE include:

• the masthead across the top from edge to edge with the main image often obscuring part of the title. The musician's importance is signalled by this.
• the main splash is usually a big name, often white, male and depicted in his prime (obviously, not always, as it depends on the magazine, but Kerrang is likely to observe this convention, too)
• the main splash is treated with respect, even reverence (especially on MOJO) and the article references his importance in the world of music.
• Block capitals for musicians' names further emphasise this.
• The choice of language in the cover lines may well suggest how the artist has battled for his music, how he has struggled, suffered, lived dangerously, pushed boundaries, reached for extremes. These sorts of cover lines will have words that connote living at the edge, the extremes an excesses of the rock / heavy metal world.
• Mostly (but not always) these are masculine qualities and therefore the colours will be more masculine as well. There may be a simple palette of monochrome colours, to connote seriousness. By contrast, publications like We Love Pop will be feminine, bubbly and chaotic, with candy colours
• The cover lines are relatively formal and orderly, usually justified to the edge L or R. They may be 'three deck' coverlines with an accent colour and a main colour
• Overall, on a serious music magazine, there will be no more than 3 colours used for the words
• Font will often be modern (like Arial) rather than traditional (like Times Roman).
• Publications such as WIRE target different audiences: alternative, underground, non-mainstream; they describe themselves as 'visionary, provocative and challenging mediocrity'.

 

WORK IN PROGRESS