IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MUSIC MAGAZINE USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS?

Because my music magazine’s genre is Hip-Hop I decided to use similar forms and conventions of a real Hip-Hop magazine ‘XXL’

My magazines masthead like XXL uses two different colours to create a distinctive brand image

Instead of just using the artists names as the headline I've used a lure in order to promote the article on the artists

Both use subheadings to promote other articles and features in the magazine

Both magazines only feature one image on the front cover which is to promote the main feature article

Both magazines use similar conventions found in a magazine like a masthead, strap line, caption’s, advertisements, images, barcode, date of issue and price of issue

In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions?

With the genre of my magazine focused mainly on Hip-Hop with a slight hint of R’n’b, I have decided to analyze similar magazines in this same genre like ‘XXL’ and ‘Rap-Up’ magazine. This helped me to see the forms and conventions suppose to be used in Hip-Hop magazines and acted as a precedent for my magazine. One thing I realised is that the masthead of your magazine is one of the most important parts as it acts as the most recognisable thing of your magazine, when doing my online music magazine presentation I found out the ‘XXL’ of XXL magazine was commonly used as a feature to give ratings for reviews, using a XXL as the top rating available and a L as the lowest, this made me see that the masthead of your magazine is going to have to not only link to your target audience but act as a theme of the magazine, I did this by not only having the front cover of my magazine have a lighting up effect but by also referring back to the magazines name using phrases like “who truly did ‘light up’ the stage in mesmerizing fashion”, I again did this with my strap line “lighting up the Hip-Hop world on a monthly basis”.