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

My media product uses conventions of real media products like music magazines by including free items within the magazine to entice the reader into purchasing it. It also uses tag phrases such as “Finally Interviewed!” Which suggests it’s a big thing that this artist is being interviewed in this magazine. In my magazine, explicit language is used like in issues of NME that feature rappers like Tyler, The Creator:

Unlike NME, I presented my page numbers quite small to fit in the general aesthetic of my magazine. In NME, the page numbers are always on the outside, and quite large. In my magazine, they’re quite small and always on the right hand side. I think it would’ve been better for me to always have them on the outside, then people can always see them.

My masthead is tall, bold and black. This gives it a huge presence on the front cover. The model on the cover also overs part of the masthead. This is done in a lot of magazines. The masthead colour also contrasts to the colour of the background. Since there isn’t much colour to begin with, I added the orange square in the upper right hand corner. This is a reference to Madvillain’s Madvillainy album cover.

The font on the cover above the masthead is also borrowing from the Madvillainy cover, with a computer kind of feeling. It’s also very easy to read, and makes it seem modern. Inside the magazine, the font is Agency FB. I chose this font because the aesthetic of the magazine is to be sleek and modern. Wordplay magazine uses a similar, yet more basic font. This and my font are easy to read.

The colour scheme borrows a LOT from Madvillain’s album cover, from the colour (and shape) of the mask, the light grey background, the orange square and the colour of the text. Knight Six on the cover is mostly in black and white just like DOOM on his cover. Since it’s mostly a hip-hop magazine, I thought this would be a cool thing to do. The orange square is also on every page in the magazine,

in the upper right hand corner.

The style of photography references Joey BADA$$ on the cover of Wordplay, with Knight’s hands up to his temples, like Joey. The photos are all/mostly black and white. I edited all of Knight’s skin to be black and white. I did this because it blended well with the white/grey background.

The writing style I’ve used is as if someone is talking, not incredibly formal, but not informal either. It’s a hip-hop magazine, so there’s swearing involved (censored in this edition). Readers of this magazine would be in their later teens (16-18), so obviously none of them would mind seeing expletives. If the magazine was for an older audience, it would be toned down a bit.

I’ve used a pull quote from the interview with Knight Six to give the audience an impression of who he really is without reading the whole article, like what NME has done here with Lily Allen.

The cover lines I’ve used are all fake artists and bands, and are listed down at the bottom inside a black banner. You can see NME has listed them in the open down the side, vertically. They’ve written their names in red, which contrasts

well, and matches the colour scheme of

that issue.