I also went out to a news agent and took a look at some other R&B magazines; I noticed that they had similar codes and conventions. For example, on all of the magazines I found excluding 'Echoes' and 'Pride' magazine, the person(s) on the cover shot's head was in front of the title; I think that this is done to show that the magazine is well known and distinct meaning that just by seeing the first few letters of the title, you already know the rest even if the model's head is covering most of the rest. Another reason could be to create depth and give the magazine a 3D layering effect.



The convention I found with the magazines is that they had a set colour scheme of about 3-4 colours. For example with the pride magazine we can see that the set colour scheme is white, black, yellow and a bit of pink; from this we can see that magazine may not be entirely feminine although the cover shot is a female, I say this because they have avoided using strong feminine colours such as pink and purple; the yellow gives a summer feel and the black and white is very neutral giving the magazine a clean look. In the same way the 'King' magazine has also used the white and black for the same rich clean and pure effect finish (The colour white can also represent extremely white sneakers and clothes worn by many R&B stars.

After looking at the magazine covers I decided that I should defiantly use either black or white (or both) as they are colours which are used in most R&B magazines, they also help to make the busy magazine look a bit more spacious. I have chosen to have a colour scheme of 4 colours maximum to avoid having an unsuccessful colour crash which may cause my magazine to look crowded and childish with all the unnecessary colouring. I will also be having the models head in front of the title so that it looks like the picture is coming out of the magazine rather than it looking like a flat image, however I do like the way 'Pride' magazine has broken the convention. Having the models head in front of the title will also allow the reader to see their face properly, this will be important especially if my front cover model is a new artist.