Magazine Codes and Conventions

 

Codes and Conventions

 

One of the first tasks I had to do was some research on magazine Codes and Conventions. I found out a lot about the title, images and other features of magazines. This information will be very helpful in the near future as I begin to make my own magazine.

In every magazine there is always a main image that usually takes up all or a lot of the front cover, the camera angle for these images are predominantly close up or a mid-shot.

 

The camera angle for this particular example is a mid-shot, this is effectively used as the person, in this case David Beckham is looking straight at the reader which makes it look and seem like he’s talking directly to them which has an effect on them wanting to buy it, the image also stands out as Beckham is standing in a Red Tracksuit top in front of a plain light grey background which contrasts with the red making it stand out more.

The title, one of the most obvious things about the title is the font it is written in, the font has to be unique for a couple of reasons, the first one being that it is exclusively that magazines font, and secondly having a unique font will be easily recognisable to readers as they will remember the magazine title if it stands out from the rest. The title of magazines nowadays are usually only one or two words long, making it easy to remember and simple. The title always fills the width of the page, the title colour is also very important, as you can see on the magazine above the title is a bright orange colour which I think is effective as it works well with the image and stands out on the grey background. It is also only two words long meaning it’s easily recognisable and memorable.

 

A puff is something found on magazine front covers that offers something else to the magazine, an example of this is a gift giveaway, and this is effective as it gives the reader more encouragement to buy the magazine.

 

This magazine to the right is a good example of the use of buzzwords, these are short one word phrases that stand out on front cover, words such as ‘exclusive’  are used to make the magazine look more appealing and stand out more.  

Another common code and convention on Magazine front covers are coverlines, these coverlines are basically short phrases taken from the inside of the magazine, these are effective as it gives the reader an insight in to what is in the magazine. The main purpose for these coverlines are to entice the reader in to buying the magazine over others.

Coverlines tend to be taken from the main articles/stories of the magazine as that is more than likely what the majority readers will be interested in. On every magazine front cover there is always one main coverline, generally taken from the major talking point in the magazine.  As you can see in the magazine 'FourFourTwo' there are a couple of coverlines, for example near the bottom left corner there is a coverline taken from a story inside about the 'Greatest Club Goals'.

The final code and convention used on front covers of magazines are strips, these are used in almost every magazine and are basically just a simple list of what is in the magazine in terms of stories, gossip and news. Even though simple, if used correctly these can be one of the most effective codes and conventions as they can have a big impact on whether or not the reader ends up buying the magazine or not, for example if the list is full of boring stories etc. the reader won't see the point in buying the magazine to read things he/she don't really have an interest in.

Overall, codes and conventions are one of the main reasons magazines are so successful as the editor has the specific list of codes and conventions to stick to.