Evaluation: Front Cover Analysis

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Overall, I have included many conventional features that appear on a front cover of a music magazine, however I've also challenged conventions too. The font of my masthead relates to my magazine as it has quite an old-fashioned 'arcade' look, which gives the impression my magazine is retro. The image has a sepia effect, which also challenges conventions as my magazine is supposed to be about music from the past and the image is supposed to have been taken years ago, as it shows the artist at the height of her music career (in 1993). Obviously, photographs in 1993 weren't sepia, however I thought it gave the photo an eye-catching effect and reinforces that my magazine is about old music. The newspaper background gives the magazine a 'quirky' and different look, therefore I have challenged conventions by having an unusual background as I noticed during my research that most magazine front covers have a plain background. I've also made my font unconventional within my cover lines, as it looks like old 'cartoon' font, which I thought would look good as it resembles the mise en scene of my magazine.

I made the choice of picking this type of magazine as I'm interested in pop and rock bands from the past as they have influenced today's music. That kind of music is also very different compared to the music in today's charts, which is what I like. I chose the colours red, black and white as they would stand out if they were on the shelf; they are also simple colours and I think they contrast well together. I made the choice of having quite a 'grunge' style (with the model's clothes) because I thought it would be different compared to some magazines that are on the market, such as Q and NME as they are mainly indie.

If I were to do my front cover again, I would maybe add more cover lines to make it look more conventional. I might add more pictures to the front cover to show what else is featured in the magazine. I might also make the magazine have a more specific audience instead of a diverse one, as my audience is unconventionally diverse because even though the audience is mainly young people, older people would probably be interested in it due to the music that is featured being from when they were younger. However, I think that this would broaden the audience therefore the magazine would sell more copies if it appeals to more than one audience.

My initial ideas were very basic (my hand drawn draft on the left) and I was struggling to come up with a title. However, I like how the name 'Timeless' represents my magazine, as my magazine includes music that has been around for years. I also kept changing my mind about where to place things on the front cover, but overall I'm happy with the layout of my final cover. 

I kept changing my mind about the layout and also the colours. As you can see by one of my many drafts on the right, I changed to dark blue at one point, as I thought that my cover was 'too boring' in terms of colour. However, I realised that simple colours are sometimes best, as that way it doesn't look too messy and colourful as I wanted a simple house style theme to run throughout my products. I was convinced that the image on the left was my final front cover, but after receiving feedback, I knew I had to improve.

I received teacher feedback and acted on the feedback by making the masthead bigger and adding a graphic behind it, as it didn't look professional seeing the newspaper background through the 'dotty' font. I also changed the slanted information below 'Sabrina' as it didn't look that conventional and my teacher said that I needed to put another graphic behind the text, as it seemed to 'get lost' within the background. I also received peer feedback from my classmates, in which they said that it might look better if I space my text out more as it looked crowded.

I then came up with this draft (on the left). I acted on my feedback previously and made the masthead bigger and also changed the font of my cover lines. I also added a semi-opaque pale red graphic behind the selling line along the bottom and behind the information (now horizontal) below 'Sabrina'. I also moved my bar code further to the right and added the price to it, as I realised that was more conventional.
I received feedback again, in which they suggested to move my plug line further up and make it smaller, remove one of the pale red boxes below 'Sabrina' and move some of the text down. Also, I realised that the black background behind my masthead made it look too 'solid' so I made some more changes.

The changes made resulted in my final front cover (on the right). Overall, I'm pleased with how it turned out and the feedback that I received from it. I made the black background behind the masthead more opaque and made my plug smaller and moved it further up. I also moved some of the text further down so it was below 'Sabrina' and also removed one of the pale red boxes. I'm very pleased with how my front cover turned out.