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

real media products?

Conventions

Throughout my planning and production, I have continually looked at the conventions of teenage pop magazines. I have Top of the Pops magazine as my main style model, and I followed there conventions. The main conventions I found were...

3 Colour Scheme

A Direct Mode of Address

Sans Serif Fonts

Handwritten FontsA Clear Title

A Slogan

Banners

Sell Lines

Splashes

I tried to follows all these conventions in order to appeal to the audience.

Here is my magazine, in comparison to a professional magazine (Top of the Pops)

Top of the Pops Magazine

Clear Title

Slogan

Sell Lines

Sans Serif Font

Banner

Direct Mode of Address

Handwritten Font

Splash

3 Colour Scheme

My MagazineTitle

Slogan

Sell Lines

Sans Serif Font

Handwritten Font

3 Colour Scheme

Splash

Banner

Direct Mode of Address

From these 2 deconstructions, I can see that I have followed all the main conventions of pop magazines. I have also added some things that aren’t necessarily unconventional, but don’t appear on every single issue of a pop magazine. The next slide will show these...

An additional image with a border.

Images of other products.

A thick banner at the bottom of the page.

The main slightly unconventional feature is the wide banner at the bottom of the front cover. I did this to create a good background for additional sell lines. I thought it emphasised part of my colour scheme and also, it made my page seem a bit busier. Whilst creating this draft, it was the last thing I put on and it seemed to make it look a lot better. I have only found one other magazine that has done this on their front cover. This magazine also shows a border around one of its images. But not all of them.

I have discussed similarities but there are some differences...

I have found that the Top of the Pops magazine front cover is quite busy and advertises most of

its articles on the front cover. My magazine advertises a few of the, in my opinion, most

appealing articles on my front cover. This point leads me into comparing and contrasting my

contents page...

This is my Contents Page of my Music Magazine and I am going to compare and contrast it with a contents page

from Top of the Pops Magazine

Conventions of a Contents PageThe main things I noticed about contents pages of pop magazines are:•A diagram of the front page to use as a guide to find articles inside the magazine.•Most of the page descriptions have an addition comment (usually in a handwritten font).•Page numbers and descriptions are broken down into categories and placed in numerical order.•The categories are mostly the same for every issue.•There are additional images on the page, advertising pages on fashion, make up etc... (marked with page number).•The colour scheme isn’t usually the same as the front cover. •Pictures of other talent are included, with page numbers.•There is a banner•Mixture of handwritten and sans serif fonts for text. Serif fonts used for numbering.

My Contents Page...From when I started analysing magazine contents pages, I liked the idea of using the front cover as a guide. I put this on both my contents page drafts. I think I stayed fairly conventional on my contents page. For example, I added an additional comment to my page descriptions. I did this in a handwritten font in a contrasting colour to the main description. I put my pages into categories and into boxes. I chose a pink to white fade to make my page look brighter, as I thought it would appeal to my target audience more. I added additional images, such as clothing and make up, and a picture of another ‘artist’. I also used a think banner with a handwritten front saying ‘inside this issue’. I did this instead of writing ‘contents’ because I thought it sounded more interesting and modern – again appealing to my target audience.

Anything unconventional?

The only thing I used that was quite unconventional was that I didn’t use a serif font for my page numbers. I used a handwritten font and I thought this made my contents page look a bit more edgy and modern. I am pleased that I did this, I think if I didn’t, my magazine would look too much like my style model and wouldn’t sell. I also think my contents page isn’t as busy as my style model, however when I added more too it, it started to look cluttered and some things were quite unclear.

Double Page Spread ConventionsThere are many double page spreads and they are all quite different. I have chosen this one as it is fairly similar to mine. The text is broken down into sections and it still has a colour scheme. If the article is exclusive to the magazine it usually says so, somewhere on the page. There is use of a variety of fonts. Additional images are added as well if necessary, and these are linked to the article. There is a large title and stands out very well on the page. Also, the pages are numbered, but this doesn’t happen on every page. I have found that only the pages numbers that appear on the contents page are the numbers that appear through the magazine on the appropriate pages.

My Double Page Spread and ConventionsMy double page spread, like my front cover and contents page is very conventional. I decided to do a question and answer article. I personally find these articles very appealing, especially if there was a celebrity that I admired being interviewed, I would take the time to read it. I added an ‘exclusive label’ to tell the reader that this article can not

be found anywhere else. This makes an article more appealing. I added a splash to my article to give a little bit more away before the audience start reading. I found this occurred often on a DPS in other magazines and gives the reader a bit more information. I kept the page number font consistent with the page numbers on the contents page. I used a mixture of handwritten and sans serif fonts to write my double page spread. I decided to use 2 different fonts for a few reasons. I used 2 fonts so the reader could see a clear difference between the questions and answers. Also, a handwritten font looks more personal, so I used this for the answers. I used a sans serif font for my questions as I thought it looks professional, but not overly formal, as this can put readers off.

Did I break any conventions?

Looking at my draft and from the description on the pervious slide I haven’t broken any conventions. After studying several double page Spreads, it was difficult to interpret what was conventional and what was not, this was because they are all very different. This may be due to the fact there are many topics and if each layout was the same each issue or for every article, then this could put off the target reader as the pages could get boring.

Overall...

After comparing and contrasting aspects of my magazine with existing magazines, I found that I have stuck to a conventional method. I think that this is a more sensible idea as unconventional magazines can be too controversial. This could lead to the target audience being put off the magazine and this means the product could be either appealing to a very narrow, niche market or unsuccessful all together.