Magazine Conventions Cover Assignment

    For the learning of the magazine convention process, we wrote down different conventions like the headlines, banners, barcodes, etc. and were provided a diagram to glue into our notebooks and go along with some of the definitions. 

    The genre I chose was to do a Hair-Care magazine; and my magazine cover conveys this genre through numerous conventions; such as the font used for the masthead and the way every cover line is hair related. 

    Some of the magazine conventions I used include the plug, "Voted #1 in haircare" and the multiple conveniently interrelated storylines. One of the biggest was the "main image" I used, which was a picture of my friend Tatiana ruffling her shiny burgendy hair with her eyes closed as she poses. 

    I remember taking the picture after my friend Bree's 18th birthday on my friend Nemo's camera and being mesmerized by how good she had looked. That's also why I made the cover story "Super-model Tatiana stuns with flawless chestnut locks using Kera-tint" as her hair is one of my favorite of her features.

 

 I feel that the use of this cover image - being so crucial as the base of my magazine - helped convey this genre by building the idea that it has something to do with hair, hinted by her emphasis by caressing and running her hands through her hair. I used play on words to create the name of the masthead, and in the picture you can see me making the banner, which further emphasizes the subject of hair by mentioning "asking experts" ; building credibility and growing interest and urge to interact. 

To find barcodes, I looked up magazine barcode and found the most convenient one. I placed it at the bottom with the price $2.22 and at the top added the publish date.

 

    I'm actually really proud of the way it came out and I did end up liking it, but there are a few undeniable implications regarding things I would change if I were to do this again.

    Firstly, the image I chose has relatively dull color palette, especially for a genre that typically has bold colors. I wish I would've at least added a filter of some sort but I wasn't aware of how to or if it'd be allowed. 

    The "tips to reducing breakage" should've been placed a bit further down on Tati's arm in order to achieve a more eligable read and less messy look in general. I believe that's where I had originally placed it and when I had moved it for something I forgot to put it back.

    The "Voted #1 in haircare" is also a bit awkwardly placed, but I didn't know where to place it in a position where it didn't look out of place.

    I also realized as I was writing this that the publishing date doesn't specify a week, although my magazine is labeled "weekly" which I probably should've taken into account.

    I had struggled a bit initially with using the program, but watching the videos we had when initially becoming familiar with Adobe had prior knowledge as to how similar software had operated, allowing me to use some of what I had previously learned combining assumption and common sense. I was able to finish the entire magazine in a single class period, which I'd consider a strength regarding the time management of some of my classmates. 

    Conclusively, some of the takeaways of this project include the newfound familiarity with the program, allowing me to use this as an introduction to other Adobe applications; and if I were to choose to do the magazine as an addition to my end of year portfolio this knowledge would be especially helpful to apply.