Question 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For the masthead I developed the convention of a real media product by using a thick but simple Font, I found this font on www.dafont.com called ‘Bebas Neue’. I used a thick font to make sure that the title of the magazine was clearly seen.  I got inspiration for the masthead of my cover from Billboard magazine. My masthead is not exactly the same as the billboard one but is similar in the way that it is quite simple and bold. The colour of my masthead is black, I chose to make it black because it was included in my red, white and black colour scheme and also because I found that on the faded grey background it made the most impact and still looked professional. By using such a simple font it didn’t take away from the other features on the magazine.

The layout of my magazine is mainly conventional of what you would expect to see on a real muscic magazine, with a few unconventional twists mixed in. For example, I have placed the masthead at the top of the page on my cover; this is conventially where the masthead is placed on many magazines. I also have used a strong image with the model looking straight towards the camera; this is conventional of the type of image that would be placed on a magazine. However I have used a ‘Handwritten’ font for the cover lines of my magazine, this is unconventional because usually the cover lines placed on most magazines are thick but simple, whereas mine is more curly and thin, I think this has worked well because it makes the look different from others which would catch someone’s eye if they saw it. On my contents page I have took elements from Q magazine in the way that the page is laid out, for example I have used red boxes to highlight the headings such as ‘Live Reviews’ and ‘New this week’ I however slightly adapted this and made the boxes on my contents page thicker than on the Q Contents page. On all of my pages I have placed the page number in the bottom right-hand corner; this is conventional of where the page number is placed in a magazine. For my double page spread I looked at many interviews in magazines and first decided to have my interview go across the bottom third of both of the pages, when I tired this out I realised that this didn’t work as well as placing the interview in columns on one page and having a big image on the other, I also found that I have more room for my article if I placed it all on one page. On the layout of all of my pages I added a red banner, I added this because I thought that it enforced the colour scheme of red black and white, and it was also quite eye catching. Overall I would say that for some aspects I have challenged the conventions of the layout as it doesn’t look like a typical Indie/ contemporary magazine. 

For my magazine the props and costumes used are conventional of what you would see in a music magazine, my model was dressed in plain black leggings and a white top with a red heart on, however the main focus of her outfit was definitely the leather jacket that she is wearing as I think the rest of her outfit seems quite mainstream but the leather jacket adds a bit of an edge to her appearance so that she doesn’t blend into the background. Her outfit also reflects the genre of the magazine well as my genre is mainstream chart music with Indie mixed in and the leather jacket on the model represents the indie ‘Edge’ of the magazine. I also chose the costumes to reflect the colour scheme of my magazine as the model is wearing White, red and black. There was no props used in my image, this is because I wanted to keep the image quite simple but powerful and eye catching and I didn’t want to clutter it with lots of props as I thought it would take away from the impact on the image.

When taking the shots for my magazine I chose to use a plain white background, I chose this because I wanted the background to be simple and not busy. I also thought having a white background would give the pose of the model more impact. I think this follows the conventions of a magazine.

I have found this cover from VOGUE that also uses a white background and I find with this one that it does make the model stand out even more.

I have found this cover from Billboard that has the same style background that is on my cover, I used this for inspiration as I thought this background colour made the main image look very powerful, this is what I hoped to re-create when I made my magazine. 

 

To take all of my test shots I used a small Kodak digital camera and took many photo’s trying out different expressions, poses, outfits and angles. I then sorted through the photos and chose the images with the poses that I thought would work and discarded those that didn’t work so well. 



I chose the masthead from www.dafont.com, it appealed to me because it was a big bold simple font and stood out. This is very conventional of a masthead as mastheads on conventional magazines are simple and bold.  For the cover lines I chose a more ‘Handwritten’ font from wwwdafont.com, this contrasts with the masthead and is more unconventional of a magazine. I however like this contrast and feel that it makes my magazine stand out from the rest.  For the text on the contents page I have used the same 2 fonts as on the cover, I thought carrying the fonts through to the contents would keep it consistent. For the article I used a simple font as I found that in the magazines I looked at they all used a simple font.

These are the two contrasting fonts that were used on the front cover and contents page.

 

The main genre of my magazine is mainstream chart music with some indie influences. The cover suggests this with the type of artists that are placed on the front such as ‘Adele, Biffy Clyro and Jessie J’ after reading these cover lines the reader would be able to recognise what sort of genre the music magazine features, this is very conventional of any other music magazine. The genre of my magazine also comes across with appearance of the model on the cover; she looks like a mainstream/indie music artist rather than a ‘Rock’ or ‘R&B’ artist. It is also very conventional of magazines to have the model reflect the genre of the magazine through the costume they are wearing and the type of pose/expression they have.

My artist in my magazine is quite conventional and looks like a pop/indie artist.  They are represented through the type of fashion she is wearing which is very mainstream and what you would expect a pop/indie artist to wear. Also with having a female on the cover with a stereotypical style of a pop/indie artist it allows the reader to recognise that the genre of magazine is mainstream chart music with indie influences. Also the readers are more likely to be interested in a young new artist and would want to find out more about her.

The Colour scheme of my magazine is Red, White and black. This colour scheme is very conventional and can be found in magazine such as Q and NME. However for the genre of my magazine the colour scheme is quite unconventional, this is because more Rock magazines tend to use such bold colours as red, black and white. I chose to use this unconventional colour scheme for the genre of my magazine because I found these bold colours made the most impact, and made the pages stand out.