Codes of Conventions of Magazines

I will continue my research with a final example, before finalising my decisions and continuing to design my double-page spread.

This is from an issue of the Rock Sound Magazine and is a feature on Scars On Broadway. The backlground is a picture of the vocalist and drummer, with a horizontal strip holding the article, coming across the page. The left side holds the name of the band and the title of the article, and the right holds most of the article. A lot of text has been contained in one small section of the page. This is an interesting method of attracting a reader. I suppose the picture of the band itself will attract the reader more than anything. As far as band articles go, it is an averagely-designed one. At the top left is a sort of introduction to the article, and stands out to the reader, acting as a sort of way of engaging the reader into continuing to read the article. The layout is very conventional, including large pictures of the band memebers, a title on the left, and the article beginning on the right. Splitting the article through the middle is a quote from the article itself made by Daron Malakian, the man on the left. This another very conventional thing seen in many articles, and I will aim to use this.

I want to go for a conventional look when creating my double-page spread and I will look back at my research into this in order to accurately sculpt the perfect double-page spread.

Images to use

I have looked through all the pictures on my phone and I've found several possibilities to use on my site and my double-page spread. I will post them here so I can refer back to them at a later stage.

This image to the left is a picture I took from a plane on its way to Greece. I believe I could use this as some sort of album cover or background for something else.



This image to the right is another one I took from the plane. I think it looks amazing and can definitely contribute to my work in some way. I will find some way of incorporating it. It's too good a photo to pass up; I mean, it's not every day you get to take a picture of a view such as this.

To the left is a picture of me with my (at the time) new drum set, from a while back. I am considering distorting the face somewhat, so it isn't me in the picture; plus I look really scared for some reason. I don't particularly want to be featured in a band that my magazine is meant to be worshipping through an article, anyway. Still, here is the original picture, so you know it's me.







To the right is a character I call The Merchant. It is a drawing I made for one of my Art pieces last year. I came across this whilst browsing my computer and I thought it would be useful as a sort of mascot for a band. I'll see how it goes. I think the mysteriously sinister look he has could contribute to the theme of a band, and possibly be a running mascot the band uses on album covers, such as Iron Maiden have Eddie the skeleton demon thing, or like Disturbed have that evil face, and Avenged Sevenfold have the Bat Skull. Something I can experiment with.









To the left is a picture of my friend Adam. I'm gonna try and pass him off as the lead vocalist for one of the bands. I think it's a good idea, because it looks as if he's posing as vocalists do in magazines and on sites.




That's all the pictures I have for now. There will be more added as I go along, but I just wanted to post some sort of heads-up on my progress here.

Magazine Research

My next step is to create the double-page spread. In preparation for this, I have looked at the various layouts of different types of magazines.

My first example is from the Kerrang magazine; very relevant, seeing as this is also a music magazine:

To the left is a double-page spread on My Chemical Romance from an issue of Kerrang. The first page is completely taken up by a picture of the lead singer of the band. This is an effective method of attracting readers to the article if they are just flicking through it. They will look at the guy and think they recognise him, of think he looks interesting, and will read on. The colour scheme is very basic; a black, white and red. Additionally, all the photos are also black and white. There is a certain art to laying out an article, and this is done effectively. There is not much text on the opening of the article, and this is the very think that will draw the reader in. Once they get immersed, they may continue to finish reading on the following pages. The key to it is making people want to read it, and this is done through the composition of pictures, paragraphs, titles and other items to generate the required response from someone just glimpsing the page. On the right of the page is a small information box. It is separate from the rest of the article, but it is relevant, as you can see. This is a clever way of including more information in a page without it seeming like too much at a glance. Statistics do, in fact, show that the average reader will only take the time to read something that doesn't look like an essay. This fact will come in handy when I go about creating mine. Another point about this page, is that it shows personal opinions of the band in conversation. Readers may generally be interested in things like this, so this adds to the attraction effect, amplified by the tactical and strategic placement of the items on the page to provoke a response.

To the right, we have a picture of a double page spread from a review of Clash of the Titans in the Empire magazine. Again, the whole of the page on the left is taken up by a full-body view of the main person involved. In this case, it's Sam Worthington dressed as his character Perseus. The main title is a catchy idea of what the article is about, and it is in big, fancy letters, coloured gold to match the colour scheme of the film and the rest of the page. There is not much text to begin with: a technique used before in the Kerrang article. There is a smaller picture at the bottom, crossing over to both sides of the page. It has a caption, and this is meant to draw the reader in further and get them interested in seeing and readin more about this film. The background on the left is dark, in contrast to the white patterns of the background to the right. Contrast is a clever method in attracting the eye, with white and black being opposite. Above the word 'Monsters' there is another short summary of the article in bold and italic. This will, again, attract the attention of the reader. The layout of the page is interesting, with a massive gap from the top before the article actually starts. This is a stylish way of setting it out, and it is a method I may consider when making my own double-page spread.

Newspaper Ad Research

In this post, I will be looking at various types of newspaper advertisements and analysing their qualities, similarities and differences, in order to get an idea for my own style and layout when making an ad.


The image to the left is a newspaper advert for an ironing service. It's pretty basic, as far as adverts go, but I suppose it has to be basic in order for it to make sense on the page. It also has to stand out from all the other ads. So that's one thing I can try to accomplish. At the top, there is a big bold heading, in the form of a rhetorical question, directly targeting the reader. The rest of it just consists of minor details about the ad, and some pictures to make it look more attractive. At the bottom are the contact details for those interested. The font is very plain and boring, but readable.



To the right is the second advert. It's for a vinyl record and CD shop, just putting their name out there. The top holds the name of the shop and there is a mascot to the left. A mascot would be a good idea for mine, so I may consider it. It may make advertising easier. The slogan is centered fairly catchy. It relates to the reader, unlike most other adverts. More ideas for me. Again, at the bottom are the contact details. This seems to be a convention of them, as the ads are generally read from top to bottom. I will probably follow these codes and conventions when making mine, because they have proven to be effective. Changing things around might prove to be a bad decision. The font here is understandable, but it isn't that plain. It's a sort of curly handwriting font.


Now here's an old advert that I found. I thought comparing old with new would also be a good idea, so we'll see if there are any similar traits for the old ones. It's a Disney ad, and it clearly contains a lot less information. But I suppose just the fact that it is a Disney ad would be enough to attract the desired readers. It seems to be for a boat ride, a family event. And the date and time information is at the bottom. Centered and taking up most of the space is a cartoon picture of the boat and the captain, inviting the reader. This would be the first thing you'd see on a newspaper page, really. Looking at it, it would stand out among other ads. This is both good and bad; you can fill your space with an attractive picture to gain attention, but at the expense of losing space for extra text showing the details. And the details are important for me, so I'll have to take this into consideration. The font here is very cartoony and interesting for an old advert, but not surprising, seeing as it's Disney-related. Still, it's a good idea to mix around the look of the text.


Finally, to the right is a comparison of two newspaper ads. One is for a movie called 'Jennifer's Body' and the other is for a TV series called 'True Blood'. The images are similar, which is why I thought it would be a good idea. The Jennifer's Body advert is just a big picture with the title and some additional information. The lips and blood would be what attracts the eyes of the reader. Reading further down, you would then see Megan Fox's name and then the movie title. This would be all that was needed to successfully advertise it for now. But that is just relying on the power of Fox's name. I would need a lot more information on mine, so I might look to the above posts for ideas. The True Blood ad is extremely similar to the Jennifer's Body one, as it also just consists of the lips, blood and additional information. Because this is a TV show, it has the date and time included, but in the American format. The tagline is also visible. Taglines seem to be a necessity. Both adverts have information on the creators, mentioning successful projects they worked on before. Jennifer's Body is from the makers of 'Juno', another successful film; and the creator of True Blood also made 'Six Feet Under'.

Overall, it seems that a mixture of images and text would be ideal. Information on TV shows, such as dates and times are useful, with the channel name/logo, like the HBO one on True Blood. Additional information on the show would be relevant, and maybe I could have the tagline at the top, to be the first thing read by the viewer. Looking into ads has been a good opportunity to get ideas that may be successful.

Time Plan

Below is my fancy-looking time plan for the work ahead. It all has to be finished by the middle of February 2011, so prepare for a lot of posts.

Sticking to the time plan has been difficult, but I believe I am getting the work and research finished according to plan. Any changes I need to make will be minor tweaks in recent posts, as well as the future posts. I believe I have included enough information to give me ideas, and to give YOU an idea of what I'm on about. If you look through everything, I think you'll agree that enough detail has been included so far. I think if someone else were to develop my site for me, I'd expect them to follow the time plan relatively accurately and I'd expect them to complete everything well and in detail, on time.

Site Plan

Here is an image I created from shapes and lines in Word showing the type of layout I'm looking at for my navigation.

As you can see, the logo will be at the top and it will be clickable as a way to take the user back to the home page. The navigation bar will be at the top and will consist of around 10 tabs with drop-down boxes for each, consisting of sublinks to various pages. Underneath the navigation bar will be the page content. Nielson's usability guidelines will be used, hopefully, in all the pages. I want the site to be easy to navigate and simple to comprehend. I don't want it to be too complicated. I want someone to visit the site, looking for something, and to find it quickly. I think this is why a search bar will help.

The pages I am planning to have linked are the News, Competitions, TV, Downloads, Music and Games pages.

Teen site research - Conclusion!

I have concluded from this research that all sites have common elements and they are usually elements that a site cannot work without. They are for convenience and to improve the layout. There should be bright and attractive colours in my site, with a possible drop down box for the navigation tabs, to make it all look hi-tech. I won't include too many tabs in the navigation bar, so I may stick to around seven or eight of them, as that is the sufficient amount.

I will split my home page up into sections and each section will be a summary of the different tabs in the navigation bar. For example, on the home page, there will be a small box labelled 'news' and it will show the top 2-3 stories, with links to the full articles. By clicking on the 'News' tab, the user will be taken to the full page with all of the stories, not just the top few. I may make some working links for the top 2-3 stories, just to expand on the site a little.

The other sections of the home page will show things like what's showing in the channel, downloads such as mp3's and wallpapers, videos and maybe an image gallery. I am considering not including the images. Either that, or I will not link a page to the image tab and just have it there for show. I don't think images are relevant and any images I use would violate copyright law, since I can't exactly take pictures of my friends and I, and include them.

I may take some information on the current music chart at the time from a site like MTV, in order to get accurate results for the finished site. I will also include different genre charts on the Music page for the people who don't like the charts and think that it's all corrupted by R'n'B... *sigh*

So there will be some Rock, Metal, Country, Rap, Hip Hop, R'n'B and other music genres to attract a wide range of users to the site...

I'm thinking of names for the site and right now I'm liking the name "Ben FM". Yes, it's ridiculous; yes, it's stupid... But I think it has a ring to it and I like it. Other names I have been considering are "Epic Radio", "Awesome Radio" and "The Ben Channel". I am thinking of mixing the names to either get "Epic FM" or "The Awesome Channel."

Weebl's Stuff

Weebl's Stuff is another teen site, but it consists of animations and games. Its purpose is comedy and some of the rude and crude animations are entertaining. Weebl's Stuff is well-known for its famous Badgers, Magical Trevor, Amazing Horse, Cat Face and the silly short sketches by Weebl & Bob. Weebl mostly makes songs out of current events and the media, sometimes using celebrities, and his site has built up as he has gained success.

The picture to the left shows the navigation which is a colourful bar of tabs with drop down bars showing sub-pages. There is no magazine for the site. The font is simple, but clear and effective, and the colour scheme is also basic. It is easy to navigate and everything is laid out well with a useful search bar at the top. On the right is some merchandise being advertised. This would be handy for my site, even though no merchandise will be made.


On the right is the bottom of the page with some shortcut links to some of the new and popular stuff on the site, and the copyright information.






This is an example of the pages for the videos. I have used the Amazing Horse video as an example. Below the video is some related merchandise. There is also a video navigation to cycle to the next, previous and latest videos. A synopsis of the video is included and there is a link to the iTunes download of the song.

Next post is the conclusion.

BBC3

BBC3 (www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree) is a division of the BBC channels, along with BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, BBC HD, CBeebies, CBBC, BBC News and BBC Parliament.


To the left, you can see once again that the site has a slideshow of new pages to catch visitors' eyes. The navigation tabs are clear and bold, which is a good feature. Again, the top of the page consists of the main elements of the site which can be expanded, with the listings and news.




On the right, you see the bottom of the home page, which has a colourful background connecting all of the small boxes down the page to a hotel via pipes. This is to do with a promotion for a show that was on at the time I visited the site. Below the hotel is a list of the BBC sites and some external links, like there were on MTV.


For the last site, I will focus on the previously mentioned Weebl's Stuff (www.weebls-stuff.com), which is a site for older teens and again, possibly adults. It consists of animations and short comedy sketches all animated by "Weebl", who is famous for his Badger, Badger, Badger animation: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/badgers/ and Amazing Horse: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/Amazing+Horse/

Be warned: there's some content inappropriate for younger teens.

Anyway, see the next post.

E4

E4 is another teen/young adult channel which hosts a variety of dramas, sitcoms, and occasionally, sci-fi. Among its shows are Smallville, The Cleveland Show, Balls of Steel, Ugly Betty and One Tree Hill; each of them are different types of shows, but all popular with its target older teenage audience. www.e4.com

Again, there is no official magazine for the site/channel. E4 is one of many sites related to Channel 4, along with 4music, Film4, More4, 4oD and Channel 4 itself.

Now for some more screenshots...


To the left is the top section of the e4 homepage. Like the MTV site, it has its navigation bar going straight across the top, with the logo far left. You will also notice that the background is an image of a blackboard with names of shows and times written on there in chalk. This is a very clever idea, as it shows the site is unique and may attract people to visit it more. You will also notice one of the sections near the top is the games section, which is odd because most sites do not show their games straight away, except for online game sites.

There is a box at the top showing the new shows with some clips to demonstrate the type of show it is. Next to the games is the top videos and there are ways to watch some shows on the site. There is also a small box showing what is airing on the channel now. By clicking the TV listings, you will see the page displayed below.

A list of all the shows for the coming week is shown with a brief synopsis for each show, including information on the subtitle options available for the hard of hearing.



To the left is one of many extras on the site. It is a short animation by Weebl, a famous animator from www.weebls-stuff.com, about the internet with a short section about e4.





In terms of the actual E4 website, I liked the blackboard background promoting the shows. I didn't like the general feel of the site. Maybe it was to do with the colour scheme, which sort of hints at a much-needed future post abut the colour scheme for my site. It was difficult to navigate after a certain point and I found I had to keep going back to previous pages to go somewhere else. Anyway, that's everything that's new about the e4 site. On to BBC3!

MTV

Looking at the MTV site at www.mtv.co.uk, you can guess the audience, seeing as it talks about famous teens and teen-related things. It can also be for young adults who enjoy the charts and mainstream hip-hop and r'n'b.

It is a music-based channel, as are many other teen channels, but it focuses only on the charts. MTV also airs a variety of music-related TV shows starring artists, with some comedy shows they produce, such as Jackass (which isn't music-related at all).

From this, you can see that it's wise to host shows not just about one subject in order to attract a wider audience.

There is no information on a magazine anywhere on the site, but there probably is an official magazine to accompany the channel.

The screenshots relate to the next part about the layout and construction of the site itself...

The navigation labels are clear to read as you can see below, and hovering the mouse over them expands a drop-down box full of the sub-llinks to the related pages.



The following are pictures of the layout of the home page for mtv.co.uk:





As you can see to the left, the top of the page consists of small glimpses of the pages listed in the navigation bar. It shows the top 3 topics for each section and has accompanying thumbnails.



In the next picture, you can see that on the right side is a list of the top songs in the chart, with its own scroll bar. This is good for space-saving, so I may take this idea on-board when considering my site.



To the right is the downloads section where it shows thirteen of the most popular downloads to interest visitors and fans of these shows. If downloads can be available for my page, I may include them just for show. There's also an advert on the right of the page which cannot be displayed due to the surf control put in place, but I think ads are necessary, so I may make a few up to put on my site, because I don't think I will be able to display legitimate ads.


The next picture is of the very bottom of the page, consisting of a search box, a list of popular searches, a brief site map and some external links for visitors to expand the sites they visit. This is a common feature of almost every site out there, as it's helpful and it saves the user navigating all the way back to the top of the page in order to select a new page to view. There is a clear division of the links and the search information which is interesting.

Altogether, this site displays a lot of techniques to consider when going about making your own. I will look back on these images at a later date to get my final features for my site.

Now onto E4... (See next next post)

Research into other teen sites

We were asked to look at several existing official TV sites and see what style they use and what's popular for that genre, in order to get ideas to include in my site. In the following few posts will be information about channels like MTV, Scuzz and E4. I will include information on the interesting aspects of the site and there will be labelled screencaps of the sites.

In the sites I will be looking at, I shall analyse every element and take into consideration the codes and conventions. It is too early to know for sure what parts of a website need looking at, but I will cover tis issue in a later post.

New Teen Channel

We were given the brief for our coursework and today we mind-mapped other TV channels and shows to get an idea of what to include on my channel. We came up with channels such as Dave, E4, BBC and Nickelodeon, which all host a variety of teen shows on a regular basis. Other channels such as Cartoon Network, Comedy Central.

Dave hosts comedy shows such as Mock the Week, QI and Have I Got News For You. These are shows targeting adults and older teens.

E4 has shows like Smallville, Skins and The Inbetweeners. There are a range of drama and comedy shows.

BBC3 shows Family Guy and American Dad, popular comedy shows aimed at adults and older teens.

Nickelodeon is aimed at younger teens with shows such as Drake and Josh, iCarly, SpongeBob SquarePants and FairlyOdd Parents.

Cartoon Network has shows like Ed, Edd & Eddy and Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls.

Comedy Central airs South Park and [adult swim], more comedy shows which are aimed at older teens and adults.

From this information, I can gather that comedy and drama are popular teen genres, so I may consider this for future tasks. That's all I have for now. Stay tuned.

HELLO AGAIN

Welcome back.
First post of my second blog.
That's all I have to say.
Good day to you.