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

real media products?

Masthead

Masthead

Sell lines

Key image (mid shot)

Sell lines

Website

Bar code

Key image (mid shot)

Barcode

Website

Front cover

Front cover As you can see the front cover of my magazine follows the conventions of a music

magazine. On the left is the front cover of a Vibe magazine. From this you can see that the key image of Drake is positioned in the centre of the cover and the image is sized so that the model is covering some of the masthead. This is a typical convention which I have tried to emulate in my front cover. Also the varying sizes in typography is something that is present both in my magazine and the Vibe magazine which is again a convention with the artists’ names standing out most after the masthead. Another similarity is the use of three font colours on the front cover of the magazine with the use of red, white and black in my magazine and black yellow and white in the Vibe magazine. The use of a colour scheme like this is again another typical convention of the front cover of a music magazine. A difference between the two magazines is that in the Vibe magazine the barcode and website address are on the left of the Magazine cover, whereas in mine the barcode is positioned on the right and the website address is on the left. Another difference between the two is that in my magazine I have used an issue number and the Vibe magazine has just used new. Nonetheless these are both conventions of a music magazine. Overall In comparison to the Vibe magazine I believe that my magazine follows the conventions of a music magazine in both the layout and content with the image sizes and font colours being similar also with the use of sell lines, website address and bar codes.

Contents PageMasthead

Featuring images

Featuring images

Front cover Masthead

Website

Website

Regular stories

Features for this edition

Features for this edition

Editorial

Contents PageAs you can see there are some similarities between the contents page from Vibe

magazine (right) and my own (left). My contents page has the features that are typical to music magazines like a partition of special features and regulars. This is done in most music magazines and is also done in this Vibe magazine, another convention is the use of supporting images that represent the stories that are deemed by the producer as eye-catching. This is again done in the Vibe magazine, however Vibe uses more images which is something which I have opted not to do as I didn’t feel it was necessary. Another convention used in both magazines is the website address and also the masthead, although Vibe has their typical way of laying it out. Ways in which my magazine is unconventional is the limited amount of supporting images used as most contents pages use more images to make the contents page more eye-catching and to fulfil it’s purpose to give information on what is featured in the magazine and put emphasis on the main stories. Overall my contents page both follows and challenges the forms and conventions of a real music magazine contents page.

Double page spread

Main image

Article title

Interview with artist

Floating quote

Introduction

Main image Article

Floating quote

Supporting images

Double page spread

The double page spread for my magazine has features that are conventional to music magazines. For example the use of a floating quote this is a feature utilised in most double page spreads and is also used in the real music magazine on the right of my magazine. Also both my magazine and the real magazine make use of a drop capital at the start of the paragraph which is again conventional to music magazines. Furthermore both magazines have a key image of the artist that the article is based on. The layout of my double page spread is again conventional as the article is sectioned into columns which is another typical feature of music magazines. I have also kept the same colour scheme throughout my magazine which I believe is important as most magazines use two or three colours throughout. My double page spread is also unconventional as most magazines use more than one image however because this is only the first half of my double page spread there are more images used in the second half.

Conclusion Overall I believe that my magazine both follows and subverts the conventions of a

music magazine which I believe is key to the success of my magazine. I followed most conventions to make my magazine realistic, however I also subverted against these conventions as I wanted my magazine to have some unique qualities and have features that make it different to other magazines.