Alternative rock magazine styles/conventions

When choosing/designing my photograph and front cover, I had to abide by the conventions of Alternative Rock magazines when deciding how I want to comprise my front cover. Firstly, from my research into the covers of magazines, I have discovered that Artists who have a unique/quirky style about them are always shown to be the centre of attention. With this thought in mind, I will be sure to make my main photograph the focus of the picture, ensuring that as little of it is covered as possible.

Along with this, I also intend to make my cover lines in the house style for my magazine, as to not have the problem of a messy magazine such as Kerrang! where the cover lines do not fit the magazine they are on. Therefore, I plan to have my magazine utilize a dark red, and black colour scheme, so I shall try to match the cover lines to this style.

Additionally, when comprising my front cover, I shall ensure that the cover lines take up less space than on the magazine Kerrang!, as this makes the magazine look too messy, and as though there is too much information on the page. Whilst I may utilize some of this messy style on my cover, I will attempt to limit this as the magazine would no longer be suited to it's genre, and would appear to be a more heavy rock based magazine.

Furthermore, the positioning of my title is very important to the layout of my magazine. I intend to have it at the top of my magazine, as expected. I shall also have it in-front of the rest of the magazine's content, otherwise the title could get lost behind the images. This will also help my magazine be instantly recognizable, and stand out.

Next, I have to think about the style of my model who shall be appearing on the cover of my magazine. Since I am going for a quirky/unique style for my artist, I needed to utilize a suitably unique outfit. The outfit in question is comprised of a tail-coated suit jacket, a black shirt, a pair of red trousers and a black top hat. My model's nails were also painted red and black. This is because the outfit resembled that of a magician, and since my artist needed a gimmick, I decided to mix the outfit, with photos involving playing cards.

This links back to my research, as I found that many front covers feature artists with similar gimmicks, such as the photograph on the left, in which the title of the story is linked to the cup in the photograph, which also matches the jacket worn on the cover.

Lastly, I have to ensure that my cover features a large title, giving the name of the artist on the front cover. It also has to be of a contrasting colour to that of the background. In this case, I could utilize red, to match the house style I have planned.