My magazine manages to stick to the common conventions of all regular magazines through its use of a masthead; a main image (although mandatory); jump-lines to pages of interest and features; and also an issue number, bar-code, price etc. One thing significant to the linking of common conventions of magazines of this genre would be the inclusion of an offer of some band memorabilia. I felt the need to have on this cover page other images used within the magazine itself displayed as Polaroids on a teenagers wall. This is as i saw this as something readers of this magazine could relate to. I had seen other (non-main) images from within the magazine used on other cover pages in this genre - but not used in this way. I inserted a short strap-line or small article bellow the main heading on the main image as this is something i have seen on many magazines i have read.
My magazine is mainly aimed at my target audience of teenagers who enjoy rock music (and its many forms), so when deciding upon language i chose to use a lot of exclamation marks - a common occurrence in this particular type of magazine. This shows the specific audience's need to express themselves in a loud projecting way (i.e the loud volume of rock, and my masthead progressively getting bigger in font size). When choosing images, i wanted all of the "artists" featured to be of the age of my desired audience. They also would be happy, or having a good time (shown through a smile or laugh) in all shots in order to oppose all of the stereotypes linked as a stigma to this style of music and age group. This fact also, i feel, makes the magazine more approachable to the target audience, as they see a more up-beat "stigma" attached to the style of music. This offers a new approach and aspect to the music. When writing i tried to keep a comical approach in order to keep the interest of the reader (as this age group is usually known for their lack of attention span) and addressed the audience in my writing when possible. This was sometimes done using questions. For the same reason, i tended to use a lot of pictures and images. My main colour scheme was black, red and yellow (with whites). The black was used in order to tie in with the typical association with this genre - portrayed as dark); the red and yellows (or oranges) were representational of fire. This was to subtly display aggression, a feeling or mood used in music/songs of this variety frequently.
When it comes to who would stock my magazine and why, i feel that it could be sold commercially. By this i mean that it would be seen in chain stores such as supermarkets. Anywhere that an average individual of the age group could get a hold of it. I would hope that these stores would stock it because of the fact that it reaches a market not usually specifically aimed at. Its not a completely niche market, but there are a lot of people who fit within the weak constraints of its reach.
Using InDesign i have been able to achieve some effects that i did not previously perceive as possible before using it. An example of this would be my tittle and overall masthead. This is because i thought that moving the individual characters in the word Scream! would be a very long and difficult task, as they are of different sizes, heights and distances. But this was easily done through the ability to manipulate each letter. Also i was able to fade the main text box on the double page spread over the picture as an overlay. On top of this though, i was then able to place captions which were slightly transparent. Through Photoshop i could also convert the image file to one which suited my needs. Complications in using InDesign did include the constant need to ensure a lot of things are right before making one step, and if you didn't you were punished by the then apparent need to start over. There are a lot of functions, meaning that you can get a lot more done, but a disadvantage is that these numerous functions hinder you time-wise.
Saying this though, my skills on the software did improve from the preliminary task. This was generally just the speed of use, but mainly the little things like changing the colour of text and shapes produced on the software (e.g. text-boxes). This made the experience a lot more fluent. Also, something learnt from my mistakes on the preliminary task, i learnt to plan way ahead of my transistion to use of the computer. I think that i achieved this through over planning my flat plans. I also did a lot more research in order to gain a knowlege of the genre and its conventions. One thing that i feel noticably improved through doing this was my language use. I think that it finally became relevant to the genre.
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