CODES AND CONVENTIONS CHECKLISTS

You know by now that regardless of genre, all music magazines follow certain CONVENTIONS, because as a culture we expect certain CODES in our media texts. 


What follows are checklists of conventions and codes that you should try to include in your work. But remember, as well as USING conventions in your work, it has to look professional; you are marked for how well you UNDERSTAND the features you are employing not how many you use, as you will have to DECONSTRUCT your own work in detail.


TIP: always have a music magazine on your desk to refer to as you work. At this point it is better to have a real magazine rather than a JPEG on your desktop so you can study the text in detail. 


Stop reading the magazines as if you are a member of the audience: instead of looking for bands and articles that you like you must detach yourself from the text and analyse how the pages are built; front covers, contents and double page spreads all follow a FORMULA, that you can play with depending on the AUDIENCE and the IDEOLOGIES you are portraying.


And always step back from the screen, look at your work and see if it looks balanced.

FRONT COVER CHECKLIST

• A clear, well- lit image of your star.
• Rule of thirds
• masthead across the top 1/6 of the page, starting in the top left corner
• Star's eyes in the top 1/3 of the page
• All text in capitals, different sizes to delineate headings and sub-headings
• Sans serif or serif fonts depending on genre
• Two/three colours with one contrasting colour to draw the eye to special features e.g. prizes
• How are representations created through the combination of star, brand, text and the values connoted to the audience?
• Unique Selling Point: what makes your mag different to all the others on the shelf? Star, masthead, branding and what these symbolise, giveaways
• Mode of address
• Features justified to the side of the page, not the centre
• Lines of text within each feature very close together- use individual pieces of word art
• Not more than three small words per line
• Feature relating to star should be biggest on the page and anchored to the star
• make sure fonts are easy to read and look professional.
• At least five features
• banner/ strap at top or bottom of page
• price and date
• tagline under the masthead