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

FRONT COVER

My masthead is one of the largest features on my front cover and therefore stands out. It follows conventions because all magazines have a masthead and use it in the same way.

I placed the strap line on the very top of my page, the strap line contains names of rappers. I made it black and red to link it to the rest of the cover which uses those colours. It follows conventions because many magazines use this to tell the audience what they can expect.

The main image is in the centre and is the biggest thing on the page as it is the most important thing on the front cover, therefore, it follows conventions of all music magazine which always have the image taking up the majority of the page and it is in always in the centre.

The background of the front cover is all in one colour which makes the artist stand out.

I located the selling line just underneath the masthead. If a magazine follows this convention and uses a selling line then it is also placed near the masthead

I think that cover lines are an important convention because they tell the reader what the main stories are in the magazine. Although not all music magazines follow this convention, I think it is important and decided to use it. I placed the cover lines on the sides of my front cover.

The headline and subheading, just like the image and the masthead, take up a large part of the magazine because it is an important part which tells the audience who the main artist is. It also links to the main image because that is the name of the artist which is presented.

Eye contact is an important convention because it engages the reader.

CONTENTS PAGE

This is the features column from the ‘Q’ magazine contents page which I base my contents page on. Although the Q magazine is not the same theme as mine, I thought that it worked well. The column is very clear and make the page numbers stand out through the use of a different colour (red)

This is my version of the features column taken from my contents page. It is very similar to the example from the Q magazine as I have also use a different colour for the page numbers.

I have used the same font (futura) as on the front cover, this keeps the theme going throughout the magazine and links everything together.

COLUMNS

On my contents page I decided to use two columns. This allowed me to combine the images and the text together well.

The text on the left hand side is made up of the feature, and a rapper special. The right hand column on the other hand is mainly taken up by two images. The large image is at the top and it is a photograph of the main artist and the bottom, small image is a photograph taken in London.

Page title- Contents

I made it clear that it is a contents page by putting ‘contents’ at the top of the page. I used the same font for this as I did for my masthead, this maintains the house style throughout the magazine.

In the top right hand corner of the page I also placed the name of my magazine which also maintains a house style.

Main Article

Main image

The main image portrays the main rapper which is ‘Big Mik’. It is a very large image and takes up the whole right side of the double sided article. I think that it is important for the main image to be so big because the focus needs to be on the music artist and making it so large certainly does that. I decided to only use one image because that way the reader can only focus on that specific photograph.

I wanted the image to present ‘Big Mik’ because he is the main talking point of the magazine and this article and therefore links with the whole product.

Main parts of the article

Date of issue tell the reader which issue they are reading

Web address which allows the reader to find out more or subscribe

The title of the article which is a quote from the music artist. This straight away gives an idea of what the article could be about.

The page numbers help the reader to find his/hers way around the magazine but also help to remember where the article is located.

For the background I used a photo taken in London. I think that this works better than a plain background which would be in one colour. I also made the photograph black and white which fits in with the theme of the article which talks about difficult moments of the rappers life. The black and white also fits in with the style of my magazine.

article

The introduction informs the reader roughly what the article is going to be about and will help to decide whether they want to read on or not.

The article is split into two columns in order to fit the text in on one page an make it more comfortable to read. The questions are in a different colour to the answers so that the reader can easily distinguish whether it is a question being asked or whether the artist is answering.

Developing ideas

Front cover

I developed the ideas of my magazine from looking at a front of cover the vibe magazine. In this magazine I liked the use of colours (black and yellow)

This is the first front cover that I created using the same colours as the vibe magazine. I also used a very similar layout of the masthead, strap line and cover lines.

After taking my photographs I decided that a black image would work better but it didn’t suit the main colours on the cover. Therefore, I changed the main colours in to red and white.

Challenging conventions

Throughout my magazine I do not challenge conventions. The only convention that I have gone against is a reduced version of the cover on the contents page. After carrying out research on contents pages I found out that rap magazines do not follow this convention. Also the content page which I used as inspiration for my contents page did not use a reduced version of the front cover.