M3: Genre, Codes and Conventions

 Codes and Conventions of a magazine

For this report i will be writing about the codes and conventions of real magazines. I will explain how my 'Anti' magazine and assets follow the unwritten rules of magazine and the layouts. The repetition and difference theory by Steve Neale (1988) states that 'Genres must all contain some instances of repetition and some instances of difference, difference is essential to the economy of the genre'. To ensure my magazine ties into this theory, i am following codes and conventions of magazines that are already published (which is the repetition), but i am basing my magazine around the success of Juice WRLD (which is the difference).

This is my masthead for my Anti magazine. A masthead is a logo that goes on the front of the magazine and is clearly seen to show the brand name or magazine name. I decided to use this name because it relates to the person it is based on as Juice WRLD has a tattoo that reads 'ANTI' on his arm, which means fans of Juice WRLD will recognise this and therefore the correct audience will be consuming my product. I have used Adobe Photoshop to create this masthead and designed it to look simple and luxurious, i did this because it fits the genre of my magazine.

This is my completed Anti front cover, I have followed the codes of magazines for my own front cover. In the top left corner i have my masthead, which is typically where mastheads are as its the first thing people read as they read from top to bottom and left to right. I have included words such as 'The New age of Hip-Hop' to persuade the audience to buy the magazine. I asked my friend to model as a rapper for the front cover, contents page and double page spread and he is the main image; he is looking at the audience to use direct address to the audience. The image is in the middle of the front cover to ensure most attention is on the model. My cover lines "Lil Baby: I feel like this is already written, Are mixtapes dead?" are placed to tell people what the articles are in the magazine about Juice WRLD and Hip-Hop and Rap. This is a convention of the magazine genre, instead of directly telling people what is fully discussed in the magazine, i am basing this around Juice WRLD and music. I have a puff on the top right of the page that states 'Polo G new album'. This follows the codes and conventions of my genre of my magazine because this is used to advertise or talk about new music within the industry. The other puff is also on the right of the page and it states 'The Kid Laroi new single 'A Thousand Miles'', which, similarly to the other puff, is advertising a new song within that genre and is relevant to Juice WRLD as both Polo G and The Kid Laroi were good friends with Juice WRLD. The main cover line is "Juice WRLD: I wanna change the WRLD" to clearly tell the audience the theme of the magazine. My tagline is "The New Age of Hip-Hop", which suggests that Juice WRLD was changing music in a positive way. I have included a dateline underneath the letter 'A' in my masthead to show which copy/edition the magazine is. I have followed codes and conventions by having the barcode and price included together, which is at the bottom corner. I chose to use a mix of bright and dark colours to reflect the different themes and vibes of hip-hop.

I used this XXL magazine front cover as inspiration for my own front cover. I have used a similar layout as this magazine. The masthead is at the top left of the page and is big to ensure the audience knows what brand the magazine is. XXL used different fonts to ensure certain words or phrases stand out. I have followed the genre conventions here as i compare my magazine cover. Also, i have included similar and identical layouts for text ideas. I used an interview with Juice WRLD from NME for my tagline.

Here is my 'Anti' magazine contents page. I have followed codes and conventions to ensure my contents page is legally and ethically correct. I used a main image on the right with all the articles on the left in a big, modern font to make sure my magazine is luxurious. The fonts make both my front cover and content page look interesting. I have a little logo at the bottom of the page which I created on Photoshop. I have been influenced by the contents page above as it uses all of the  conventions of a typical magazine. On both magazines there is an issue number and date. To fit the TV genre of my magazine, the main image is based on Juice WRLD. I have also used the 'Who asks Satan' font, which is used for many Juice WRLD designs online so the audience will know the reference to Juice WRLD.

Here is my Juice WRLD/rap double page spread. The article I decided to write about is the short life and quick success of Jarad 'Juice WRLD' Higgins. I have followed codes and conventions of double page spreads, which can be seen from this example double page spread. The headline is the biggest text and is at the top of the page. I kept the same colours as my contents page to ensure each page was consistent. The title font is Lemon Milk and is different to the paragraph font I used, which is century gothic, as both are easy to read. Century Gothic is curvy and modern and Lemon Milk is bold and luxurious. I have used a lead in underneath the headline, which will allow the readers to know what the article is about, and this text is smaller than the headline but is bigger than the regular writing to show its importance to the article. My text was put into columns, which is a convention of a magazine's double page spread. I have included a gutter in the middle of the page as i haven't placed anything there because this is where the page will fold. Also, i have included page numbers on the double page and the contents page as this is a convention of all magazines. At the end of the double page, i added a small '999' illustration that i created in photoshop, which is a direct reference to Juice WRLD as that is his catchphrase that all of his fans knows him for. Juice WRLD explains how 999 means "turning hell upside down, and taking whatever bad situation you are dealing with and turning it into something positive. I have used pull quotes at the bottom of the picture, which is a quote that Juice WRLD said. 

Overall, i have successfully followed the codes and conventions of a magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. Also, i have succesfully portrayed my genre throughout my magazine.