Every media product follows a guideline that allows it to be designed in the way that decoders will be familiar with. All media products are put into categories that will target a specific audience and the audience should easily be able to recognise the use of key elements and the techniques used by the encoder, the categories are more commonly known as genres. An example of a genre is a horror film, the encoder (director) of a horror film will consider using similar settings and dialogue, they may even consider similar storylines as previous horror films that have been produced, this is an example of intertextuality – links have been made from previous media texts to produce a new one. The media product that I have produced, a music magazine, generally follows the same pattern; they will use the same techniques of including similar storylines and interviews that would generally involve asking the same questions that would best suit the target audience.
The codes and conventions of a typical magazine are as follows (this is for the magazine FourFourTwo):
The codes and conventions of a typical magazine are as follows (this is for the magazine FourFourTwo):
Key elements of music magazine include:
- The main focus of the magazine being around one type/genre of music, the encoder would use this type of music to base the design of the magazine around and base things on what the decoder would expect to see.
- Another typical feature of a music magazine is an article about a well-known musician or a particular band, the article will be based around either the music the artist produces or something interesting that has happened in their personal life.
- A tag line or a puff to show how good the magazine is or any awards that the magazine has won, I have included this feature on my front cover in the form of a puff. This will represent the magazine and the popularity of it to the decoder allowing them to understand how good the magazine is and should attract them to purchase the magazine.
- As my target audience is a young one, I have included an offer of free posters of all of the featured band members. An offer is generally included in most magazines but are generally are better offer due to the target audience. My offer is a small offer but it targets my audience in the way I saw necessary.
- Any type of product that is being sold ever will include a barcode somewhere on the packaging, my music magazine does include a bar code in the bottom left hand corner of the front cover. I chose this position on the page as it doesn’t interfere with the picture at all and it doesn’t get in the way of any text. Also included with the bar code, is the issue number of the magazine, the price of the magazine and the issue date of the product, these are included with the bar code as, after researching front covers I found that the majority of them did the same thing as I have done.
- Finally, the most important feature on the front cover of the magazine is the masthead. The masthead is the title of the magazine is the word ‘beats.’ I used this title as it relates to music. The masthead is bold and would be the first thing that the consumers sees when looking at the magazine rack in a store.
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