15. FLAT PLAN OF COVER AND CONTENTS

Magazine front cover

Above is my draft flat plan for my front cover, this shows you exactly what my ideas are for the cover itself. My ideas of the cover were based on an XXL magazine cover featuring Big Sean, because I believe that it represents the genre to the best quality and fashion which are a very current trend in contemporary Hip-Hop. I made sure I stuck to the basic design of the magazine cover because I believed that it would be very effective as I extremely enjoyed the original cover. 

I decided to call my magazine 'FLOW' as the word can clearly be associated with the Hip=-Hop genre and will give the magazine the ability to be identified as a magazine from the Hip-Hop genre, because it best describes the adopted rhythm by musicians. I believe that it will be clear to identify what type of magazine it will be by the title.

My decision behind the artist and his name was very simple; I wanted an artist that was made up but still able to have realistic qualities. I chose the name 'Trip' as it is a slang term affiliated with the genre, that actually means 'go crazy' and as an artist his 'flow' or style of rapping is one that many could describe as slightly 'insane' much like Big Sean's who has a very vibrant style of rhyming. I took a lot of inspiration from the 'XXL' magazine cover, by incorporating not only the artists' pose (as I believed it was the correct angle of gaze that would ensure the reader would be attracted) but also because it plays into the conventions of the genre. Most covers involve the colour red from this genre - it represents danger and also romance, the genre's artists are normally very stern looking on the cover of the magazines and therefore may look very dangerous and intimidating. Another convention of the cover is that the majority of the covers are male dominated but also dominated by black males therefore I may choose to have a subverted image and use a white male, however as the music industry has a large amount of black males it may be wise to stick to this convention. 

As an added aspect I aim to include a few fashion articles as in modern Hip-Hop, fashion is becoming something a lot more artists are becoming involved in as style evolves and there are a lot of urban clothing lines that musicians get more involved in.

Magazine contents page

With my contents page I took inspiration from 'Q magazine' as it included all the elements that members of my focus group preferred when looking at a magazine from this particular genre. 

I've linked this page to my magazine front cover because it was consistent with my colour scheme of using red text for titles used throughout the magazine. I also made a clear link to the cover page by using the masthead on the title for the contents page. the largest image on my cover page is of my artist, 'TRIP' (Oke) who I will be writing a double page spread. I chose to make the image this large because I want my readers to know that he is the main focus.

The way in which i've drawn my artist out on this flat plan is basically how I want him to pose on my cover. I want him to be against a white backdrop with his hand by the side of his head showing off the gold watch he'll have on him with a very serious look on his face that will attract the readers.