My final project pieces (the magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread) all use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products. One of the most evident displays of this is in my front cover’s title. The name itself is fairly standard and sticks to the conventions as it is short and consists of a single, interesting word ‘Ephemera’. Many magazines use either two words or fewer, or an abbreviation for their magazine titles; some examples of this include: Rolling Stones, NME, Q, Kerrang and Vibe. Many of these titles hold very little meaning to anyone and are often there simply to give a brand identity as well as providing a simple hook (a short title such as ‘Vibe’ is far more likely to catch the short attention span of humans than something long in length e.g. ‘New South London Jazz and Blues Music Magazine’) and being memorable.
Defying traditional magazine conventions, I created a three dimensional title (using a program named ‘Cinema 4D’). I am currently unaware of any other magazine which done this, therefore making my magazine completely unique in the sense that it contains an aspect which none others have. The reason for making it this way was to intentionally defy conventions, therefore potentially boosting my magazines appeal to shoppers as they become curious as to why my magazines masthead is different to all the others, thus increasing the probability of them selecting and reading my product. However, I was able to make my masthead more subtle and appealing via using the common magazine trend of placing the featured model partially in front of the title. This is clearly shown here in my magazine and an old ‘NME’ extract:
('NME' masthead)
(my masthead)
The barcode I create is very typical of music magazines. It consists of a custom made barcode (created using: http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/) with a two digit extension. In addition to this, I have included the price, date, issue number and website all of which are commonly found in high profile music magazines. However to make mine different to the majority of content and to link it to modern technologies, I added a QR code. QR codes (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) are codes which are scannable by many modern smartphones, when scanned they either redirect the user to a website or provide them with a small text based message. The potential for QR code use in magazines huge as they could be used for a variety of reasons such as: linking customers to their webpages, supplying them with exclusive deal codes and promotions, unlocking special website content and much more. To create the one on my front cover I used: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/. Here is my barcode and one from a 2008 ‘NME’ magazine:
('NME' barcode to the left, my barcode to the right)
Another use of conventions of real media products was placing my model in front of the front covers masthead. I had seen these technique used in a variety of different magazine including Q, NME and Kerrang. This method seems to bring a new depth to the magazine as it makes it appear as though the featured person is coming out of the magazine itself. In addition it allows a larger portion of the person to be displayed, thus increasing the likelihood that fans of the musician that is featured will notice and therefore buy the magazine. In my front cover I have tried to keep as much of the masthead visible as possible because my title ‘Ephemera’ is a very rarely used word. Below are examples of mastheads being partially covered by models:
(my front cover)
(Q magazine front cover)
(NME magazine front cover)
(NME magazine front cover)
In my contents page I decided to challenge the standard conventions and make the layout seem more like a promotional festival poster. The intention I had in mind when I chose to do this was to make the magazine appeal more so to festival goers by presenting them with a format which they are largely familiar with. However, I believe that I was still able to achieve the purpose of a contents page via including a variety of titles, page numbers and quotes. As well as this I have kept its colour scheme similar to the front cover and double page spread thus reinforcing the brand identity.
(my contents page)
(Download festival poster)
(Wireless festival poster)
(Global Gathering festival poster)
The models clothing is representative of the role models of my intended target audience. The clothes are currently highly fashionable and appeal greatly to the fashion conscious teenage audience. Similar clothing can be found on a verity of modern musicians, it sets the feeling that the wearer is professional but also largely casual. The jacket in particular is an extremely common fashion items in the industry, by many it could be seen as a statement of masculinity. Some musicians and bands that have been known to ware jackets include Knife Party, Muse, The Arctic Monkeys, Skrillex and Nero.
(my front cover with the model)
(Nero)
(The Arctic Monkeys)
(Knife Party)
(Skrillex)
(Muse)
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