Annotating an allocated magazine with all the technical and formal convention features on the front cover has enabled me to learn the media language for each of these features as well as being able to locate them. This has allowed me to understand how all magazines are extremely similar with their conventions making them recognizable as a magazine to the audience. All magazines include these basic conventions but having their individual differences in order for their targeted audience to recognize their magazine every time it is issued. The basic conventions included in most magazines; masthead, cover lines, main cover line, main cover star, barcode, price, plug, pug, insets and captions.

For example, on Music Week, the magazine we annotated, there is a main cover star, Lana del Rey, who is the main focus displayed on the cover. This draws the audiences attention here allowing them to discover more about the magazine. Another feature included on this magazine is the different cover lines which reveals more ideas about what will be included within the magazine. The composition and layout on the magazine is a basic effect which you see across many other media texts however it is also effective. If you split the cover into nine boxes, each aspect on the front cover is placed there for reasoning, e.g the cover star is centre drawing attention towards here.

Now understanding the ideas about the technical and formal convention features within magazines will enable me to focus on these components on my own magazine cover, making sure everything is included in order for the cover to me effective for my targeted audience.