In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Emily Kennedy

For my coursework task I produced a more alternative, hipster music magazine similar to magazines such as Vice, Dazed, The Wire and Fucking Young. It features a close up shot of a female model’s face for the central image on the cover. This is similar to that of other music magazines such as Dazed and The Wire. I took this shot in a club in Brighton, getting my model to pose flirtatiously at the camera. The flash was the only light but it worked as the club was relatively dark. I thought about having her hair slightly curly before we went out and asked her to wear red lipstick as it’s a striking colour which would attract the audience’s attention. I chose to have her stand in front of the gold glitter wall as I felt that this was a great background, fitting in with the brand identity of my magazine which is to be unique and obscure. A glitter background is ethereal and glitzy but goes against generic conventions of most music magazines, such as Clash (which often features a plain background) and is therefore obscure. With this shot I wanted to connote a sense of fun (with the glitter background and flirtatious facial expression). I felt that this would appeal to both a male and female target audience as my model is attractive and also a role model.

Clash - plain blue background

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Other generic conventions I have used in my magazine include those like; a large eye catching masthead, a barcode, web address, a splash, articles trailed, a puff. I adhered to the conventions here so that my audience would be familiar with my product being a magazine and read it in a “preferred” way. This is taken from The Cultural Studies Approach by Morley. Most music magazines will use the artists name who is featured on the front cover which I have also done. I adhered to these conventions in order to make the audience feel comfortable with my magazine as well as trust my magazine as official. With the more fashion conscious magazines such as Dazed the splash is mostly simplistic, with a bold font, often sans serif which creates a clear style. I have replicated this in my own magazine. In order to do this, I decided to use Digitek font for my splash which, although futuristic is also simplistic in its design. The connotations with this font were futuristic which befits the splash “future sound”, the simplicity is eye catching as it makes the font stand out against the busy front cover. Using a stroke on the typography for “future sound” was a choice I made basing it on “weird science” on the Grimes cover of Dazed. I felt this connoted simplicity whilst making the font bolder and easier to read. I believe that this adds a sense of refinement to the magazine therefore targeting a more mature audience, which was my aim.

I have challenged some conventions of music magazines as I haven't used any studio photos in my magazine, instead opting for posed shots in a variety of locations. I decided to do this as in my audience feedback I was told that the images should be interesting and therefore believed that non-studio photographs are less common and more intriguing. I felt that this would help me create a unique brand identity, as non-studio photos are rarely used in the magazines I researched (Dazed, The Wire etc). My image manipulation is also not common to other magazines, for example I have used a pixelate tool on one of my images, and colour splash for others. This was all done to be in keeping with a more artistic, creative audience as images manipulated this way are more visually interesting. These images are some of the main points that I use to try and anchor my brand identity; of all the magazines I researched none of them use these image manipulation techniques. I purposely chose to do this as it pushes the boundaries of what is normal in magazines. This makes this idea fresh and appealing. Another reason I chose to manipulate my images in an obscure way was to be purposefully unpredictable, so as to pleasantly surprise my audience leaving them expecting more obscure features. This is the theory of entropy which refers to purposeful unpredictable elements in media products that go against the audience’s expectations of that particular media product.

Many music magazines will focus on just one genre, e.g Complex focuses on Hip-Hop and Q on alternative rock. However, my magazine shall feature many different genres of music as long as they're weird and wonderful. I chose the hybrid approach as many people today have eclectic music tastes, especially those with a passion for music and creativity. Therefore I think that featuring many genres would be beneficial to those in my audience who enjoy a range of genres. Also it’s a lot easier to find obscure music/lyrics/artists across a wide range of genres, that is the reason I chose to do a hybrid approach.

Generic conventions I have followed within my contents page include: large page numbers on featured articles, 50:50 text to image ratio, a small cover photo in the top corner (Dazed) with the stylist, photographer and model’s names. I chose to adhere to these conventions as both Dazed and other magazines I researched are successful professional magazines and this sense of structure obviously works for them. It gives a sense of structure to my magazine which shows organisation and therefore an audience would recognise and trust my magazine and its contents.

Another way I have challenged conventions is by using a textured masthead, this is more obscure and alternative as not many magazines do this. I used a step by step tutorial to manage this in Photoshop. I chose my textured holographic snakeskin image, duplicated the layer so that I had a background layer and Layer 1 that were the same (snakeskin image). I then added a blank layer in between the two layers and filled it with white. I then selected layer 1, set white as my foreground colour and typed “PEEL” in Double Feature onto this layer. I then clicked the checkmark to accept the text, positioning the text where I though was best. I then dragged this text layer below Layer 1, so that it was in between Layer 1 and Layer 2. Selecting Layer 1 again, I created a clipping mask from the Layer menu. That’s how I created my Peel masthead. I also added a thick stroke weight on my masthead in Photoshop to make it bold and graffiti like. Link to tutorial: http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photoshop-text/text-effects/image-in-text/

The masthead coincides with the brand identity as it's definitely obscure and youthful, being fashionable whilst still being alternative. There is also definite continuity of house style as I have used the same slime font (Double Feature) for both the masthead and contents title. Both the masthead and contents title are holographic which is also in keeping with house style. In this instance I have adhered to generic conventions of magazines as I felt that creating a strong sense of brand identity and house style is one of the most aspects of magazine design. An audience can distinguish between different magazines from their house style and brand identity, I felt it was best to follow the professional magazines in this aspect so that my magazine would be recognised and successful.

The mode of address within my magazine is mature yet chatty, and informal yet not patronising. As my target audience are from 18-25, an informal dumbed down mode of address, seen in certain pop magazines that are aimed at a younger audience, would not be desirable. I chose to go with the same generic convention as Dazed where the mode of address is informative as well as being interactive. I feel that an audience of 18-25 would appreciate this much more as they wouldn’t want to feel unattached from the writer or the artist, but would still like to be informed on things they deem important.

Examples of chatty/informal language:

Examples of informative language

All these examples use direct mode of address to attract the audience.

These examples tell the audience what’s coming up in the magazine and are therefore informative.

The reason behind choosing Double Feature font for my masthead was that it is a dripping slime/horror style font and connotes the freakish obscure side of life that I want to highlight in my magazine. It also compliments the title of my magazine “PEEL” as this word could refer to many things; the peeling of the magazine pages or perhaps connoting something more sinister. The font Digitek was chosen to represent the futuristic sound of the artist featured on the cover. Courier was used for most of the bulk of text as it’s easy to understand. The font 04b was used on the DPS as it connotes a boyish alternative gamer style which is definitely the style of Harrison, my model, therefore it compliments him well. It’s also striking and so would guide the audiences attention to the DPS. Using a variety of fonts within a magazine is a generic convention of music magazines so I decided to adhere to generic conventions in this case. Music magazines often do this to create a distinctive hose style, which was why adhered o the conventions, as well as keeping the audience interested with featuring a variety of fonts.