IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP AND

CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL

PRODUCTS?

By Shivani Panchal

■ My media product which is a (Indie) music magazine uses the codes and the conventions because in my

indie magazine I used the same house style throughout the magazine. This means that I kept the same

font, colours that I have used on the front cover on the contents page and the double page spread

consistently.

■ Additionally, I didn’t break any codes and convention that make up the magazine, if I had it will look like a

mess, confusing the reader as to the content of the magazine whether it appeals to them or not. In order to

make my magazine more professional I stuck to the same codes and conventions that are on a normal

music magazine. For example, on the front cover there is always a main image of the feature artist that will

appear on the double page spread.

Examples of codes and conventions in a music magazine:

MASTHEAD BARCODE STRAPLINES

My magazine

The main image will

also have direct

address, looking

straight at the

audience.

Additionally, I have also

challenged the codes and

conventions of a music

magazine. For example, I

have placed the barcode

in a different position,

which is normally placed

on the bottom left of the

page.

However, in my

magazine have placed

the barcode on the top

left of the page,

underneath the

masthead. If I had placed

the barcode right in the

middle of the page it

would have been

inappropriate. This is

mainly because the main

image will be on the

middle of the page thus

covering it.

• I have kept the same house style of the magazine, which is called Nostalgia, throughout the magazine. The

colours are pink, black, white and blue. I have made MISS KAVIA a different font from my straplines heads

to show the importance of the feature artist. Additionally, this will draw attention of the reader to read the

magazine. On various places around the main image I have included straplines and headlines to entice the

reader like ‘Aquilo After the hack we have the secrets on what happened on the day’ or ‘Real reason why

Mumford sons went on a ‘3 months’ Sabbatical last year’ and also I have included drop capitals to make

the first word of each word stand out more than the rest.

• One of the main magazine that helped me to influence this idea is called ‘CLASH’ and this helpedme to create thelayout of themagazine. Forexample, Icopied the mainlayout of themagazine suchas where themasthead,barcode andalso the featureartist name willbe. However, tomake it my ownwork I used adifferent font forthe mastheadand the featureartist.

• On my contents page in the nostalgia magazine I also used another magazine’s contents page (Qmagazine) to helpme develop myideas fordesigning thecontents page. Bydoing this I wasable to layout thepage to make thecontexts pageclearer.

Lastly on mydouble pagespread I did notrequire muchinspiration fromother magazinesfor the layout.This was quitesimply rearrangingthe image and textuntil it fit togetherincluding the pullquotes around the

page.