Research into MAGAZINE CONVENTIONS

Here is the mindmap a made in Canva after consulting some of the resources I've found relevant.

After exploring how magazines are built — from mastheads and cover lines to contents pages and pull quotes — I’ve been thinking seriously about what kind of magazine I’d like to create this year.

• The Magazine I’d Like to Create:

I’d like to design a current-affairs and culture magazine for students. Its focus would be on how media shapes the world we live in — but with examples that make sense to teenagers.

Some article ideas:

• How Instagram and TikTok influence public opinion about climate change.

• The role of news outlets in covering student protests or youth activism.

• Interviews with young people from different countries about how they get their news.

The design would be clean and modern: a bold masthead, one striking cover photo, and a small set of cover lines to keep the layout focused.

• A Convention I Would Avoid:

I’d avoid the “overcrowded cover” style where 10 or 15 tiny headlines compete for attention. For a magazine dealing with serious youth topics, fewer but stronger cover lines would make the stories stand out more. I’d also avoid very dense text blocks — instead, I’d use clear subheads, pull quotes and sidebars to keep it readable.

• Three Conventions That Make a Magazine Different from a Book:

1. Branding on Every Issue: Magazines have a masthead and repeating visual identity on every cover. Books have a single fixed title.

   
   

2. Regular, Dated Issues: Magazines come out weekly or monthly with a dateline and price; books are one-time publications.

   
   

3. Variety of Layouts: Magazines mix multiple articles, authors, pull quotes, captions, images and adverts laid out in columns. Books are usually continuous text with minimal variation.