By researhing similar media texts i have found that the main codes and conventions for a music magazine front cover are:

• Bold and bright colours which contrast with each other to make it stand out and attract an audience.
• A masthead which is fairly big and bold.
• Usually one image which takes up the whole page or a few images but one which mainly stands out over the others.
• Lots of titles/features on the page about whats inside the magazine, these should also be bold and stand out to the audience, some more than others for example the main title for the cover story.
• A barcode so people can purchase the magazine.
• Most of the magazines i researched used phrases which attracted an audience to buy the magazine such as "Free..if you buy this months issue" or "exculsive only in (thier magazine)"

The main codes and conventions of a contents page are:

• Usually very simple design, featuring only a few pictures.
• The main titles are usually features- which is a story or interview only featured in that issue of the magazine. Monthly features which appear in the magazine every issue.
• The page title is usually something which is used to attract the reader to that page, it could be a phrase or quote from the page and then underneath it there is usually a sentance explaining a bit more about whats on the certain page.
• Some magazine's also featured pictures for example of a certain band which then had a page number on, so if the reader liked that certain band they would go straight to that page.

The main codes and conventions of a double page spread are:

• Usually one main image which is fairly big, in most of the magazines i have annalysed they have chosen to take up one whole page with one image. This is done to draw the reader towards that page.
• They also use bold writing and colours which stand out.
• They normally feature interviews on a certain artist or double page about an event or something like "10 ten songs to listen to this week".#