Codes and conventions of magazines analyse

Codes and conventions are used by producers and institutions to publish magazines in a recognisable form. Some are some what similar to national newspapers with certain elements to make their magazine different from the rest of their competition. Some magazines use different genres to make the magazine appeal to the consumer and appeal to a specific target audience. A lot of the magazines on the current market include lifestyle, fashion, music, teenage and gaming.

In terms of colouring, lifestyle magazines tend to have more sophisticated colours such as beige and cream targeting an older audience, whilst music, mainly rock, and gaming magazines tend to have bold and striking to target a younger audience. The colour needs to set the tone for the rest of the magazine as does the type and font creating a house style across the magazine. Good examples of bold but mature colours in NME, an indie-rock magazine produced by IPC media, are yellow red and black, though red and yellow with black is a bold choice but yellow isn’t a colour you would associate with teenagers, more of a mature, older audience.

When it comes to similarity to newspapers, these include a masthead, pugs, cover story and central image.

The masthead should target their audience by using colour and font. The masthead is usually positioned at the top and is usually the second biggest item on the page after the central image. To target their audience I.E. Teenagers, they should have big and bold masthead. Colours can be bright and vivid e.g. red, pink, bright blue etc. When you’re doing lifestyle magazines your masthead is more sophisticated and not as bold, targeting an adult audience. The font is usually simple like Times New Roman and in subtle colours.

The pug is the price, logo or a promotion of the magazine. They are normally called the ears of the magazine. These attract the audience so it can help the audience know what might be in the magazine or how much it is worth.

The cover story is your main article and the centre piece of the magazine. This includes the cover star (fashion, teenage and music), cover items (lifestyle) or a graphic images (gaming). It is mainly positioned at the left and in the middle. Like the masthead, it might need to stand out from the background (dark or bold colours if on a light background or light and pale colours on a dark background).

The central image is the biggest item the page and is related to the cover story. This is also similar to the cover story as it has a cover star, cover items and graphic images.