LO3: Following codes and conventions.

LO3: Following codes and conventions

Upload the following and justify why each one fits into the codes and
conventions of a real magazine (similar to yours), genre and audience:

* Photos you will use on each page of your magazine.
* Body copy for your DPS
* Screen shots of setting up Photoshop and InDesign for your pages.

Put each page of your final magazine next to a real one and add notes to show
how you followed conventions of a magazine.

The photo I will use on my double page spread is shown below:

How does this Image fit with the themes of an Indie/ Local music magazine? 

When creating this page in my magazine i was very couscous of the fact that an indie music magazine's audience expect the people featured within the text to be very individualistic. This is why i have so heavily edited this photograph as to make The models hair stand out against the more mundane black and white image. The hair is blue because I felt that it is a far more calm colour and does not give off any aggressive connotations like black or red may. This fits with how indie music, although in the category of rock music is not overly aggressive.
As well as this i feel that the photo being in black and white helps connote its local feel as that Sheffield is most well know for its era of prosperity forging steel. This means that most of the most famous images of the city are in black and white meaning that the image fits in although at the same time the fact that I have made the models hair blue connotes that while the image is from Sheffield the music they create is modern and not stuck in the past.

I have included the body-copy (Pre sub editing) below in blue:

Forge Magazine gains an exclusive interview with Abigail Holland Front woman of Sheffield based The Coup.

Lets start from the beginning, How did the band meet and form?

Well, we were all actually friends in secondary school I guess we met in classes, music actually. I remember we had this coursework project where we had to make a song and we just got along really well when it came to making music and we thought that if we formed a band then we could entertain fans and make a bit of money on the side as well. Starting off was really easy for us. We got a few gigs straight away and we were really eager to play our own songs for people.  

Have you always played music in Sheffield? And if not where else have you played?

We’ve definitely spread out a bit since the band formed. Not that far though. I think the furthest away we’ve been would be our gigs in Leeds and chesterfield . We definitely want to go further in time. The main focus has always been reaching as many people as we can.

 How would you describe the music you produce?

Our music is definitely abstract. I’m usually concerned about sounding the same as everyone else because I feel that the audience for that music already exists and people will just listen to the others over us. It’s really difficult to become popular when you sound the same. In terms of genre the music is definitely indie, kinda rock and kinda punk. Like I said though, it’s really hard to categorise when the sound it’s so intentionally unique. We were definitely trying to find a gap in the market and set a new trend because if it works then people will listen to our band and the messages we’re sending out in the music.

What would you say that you write your music about?

Well, when I’m writing music it usually tends to be about what’s going on in my life. Like, if I was feeling really stressed out with work then I would write a song about being stressed out and what I do to get over the stress. I put a lot of emotion into my work so it sounds a lot different depending on how I was feeling when I wrote it. Sometimes when I’m happy and relaxed I write songs about that.

Do you find Sheffield to be a rewarding place to play music?

Sheffield has to be one of the best places to be a band a play music. There are so many places to play music like the area for huge bands but it’s the indie scene that makes it so easy for new groups to gain a following. We could play the O2 Academy, West Street live and the Mulberry tavern easily and the people here are great to play to as well. I think when you talk about Sheffield being a rewarding place to create music its clearly true because of the huge acts that have come out of this city. There’s the Artic  Monkeys, Def leopard and bring me the horizon just off the top of my head and I’m sure that there are far more incredible acts in the city. There is so much talent here and I think that’s all don to the encouragement and resources that the city has for people who want to play music and the accessibility of the music to the people who live here. I know that I wouldn’t be playing music now if the school that I went to didn’t have a whole department dedicated to sound recording. I think that it’s important to make people think, “It can work. I can be in a band” because honestly if people believe that then there’s no reason they cant in this city.

  

How does my body-copy fit into the category of Local/ Indie magazine?

When writing this article I wanted it to be in a peer to peer mode of address. This made the most sense for the type of article i was writing (an interview with an up and coming indie rock group) as that the subjects of the article are not well known by the readers of the magazine and therefore they would need to be introduced to them through the article i was writing. Therefore this piece being in this mode of address would make the subject seem more down to earth and relatable to the audience.

As well as this all the questions i asked the interviewee were centred around either their music or the places that they play music (all of which are local) This helps for the subject to be established to the unfamiliar reader as a musician.

Contents Page:

How have I followed codes and conventions on this page?

I have used several techniques in order to make my magazine fit in here. Firstly I made sure that I was regularly consulting real life examples of contents pages to make sure that my layout was consistent. After that I made sure that the heading I created was in line with others as well as having synergy with the DPS I had already created. This leads to my choice of font (That being "The Bully") I felt that it was good at connoting the rebellious magazine to a new reader who has only just opened it for the first time. The house style is also constant with my other page. This is as that  the descriptions of articles are written in "Geneva" font which was also what I used on the DPS.

The images I have used were positioned in a similar fashion to the real life example which I studied. I also included numbers on the images to show which articles they relate to.

I also made sure to write the descriptions of articles in the same peer to peer fashion that I wrote my double page spread in.
I have also made sure to include the masthead (which is a recoloured version of the one on my front page) as well as the title in fonts which serve to connote the rebellious themes of rock music. This creates synergy with my other pages. 

Front Page:

The Front page ofmy my magazine was inspired by many others of the same genre. I chose to use many different designs and draw inspiration from all of them as that i wanted mine to look very uniqe so that it would better connote the individualistic nature of indie rock music. Belowi have compared the assets of my own front page to those of three different issues of both Kerrang and Rocksound magazine.