Codes and Conventions

The background is usually plain or outdoors. Meaning that the artist is usually standing against a plain coloured wall, or they are standing with a woodland background. The two images on the left show what each of the two backgrounds look like on an existing music magazine. The image with the background comes across as more of a country magazine front cover whereas the one with the plain blue background seems to look similar to a pop magazine front cover.

The singer is the main focus of the magazine front cover. The two magazine covers show that the artists are the main focus on the front cover. This mean that the sell-lines shouldn’t cover up the main part of the image and are usually positioned around the sides of the artist.

The sell-lines are usually written in a bright colour such as red or white so that they stand out and there is about two lines under in a calmer version of the sell-line to give the reader and insight of the article. Also the main sell-line is usually near the top of the magazine cover and is written in a larger font size. On many country music magazines there is not a lot of sell-lines on the front cover, this is because the image is usually the main feature and not the sell-lines.

In many country music magazines there is a barcode in the bottom third of the front cover, this can be on the left or the right depending on where the company prefer to position the barcode. This is so that it does not distract attention from the main image and the sell-lines that are placed on the sides of the image.

The covering artist is usually blonde and is wearing a dress or a county themed outfit. This means that they could be wearing jeans with a t-shirt or they could be wearing a pair of cowgirl boots with their costume. They may even have a guitar within the main image on the front cover. This is because the magazines what the readers to know that they are country and this is a common convention that most magazines follow.