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

Front coverFor my front cover, I feel that I mainly kept to the conventions of music magazines, for example, I positioned my title at the top of the page ensuring that it could clearly be seen when stacked on the shelves in shops. However, i do feel that i have challenged this convention as i have chosen a font that isn’t typical for the title of a music magazine as most use sans-serif fonts. I do feel that this will allow for my magazine to stand out from other on the shelves as well as giving a feminine feel which will appeal to my target audience. Secondly, I used two colours on my cover lines which is another convention of all magazines to help the reader to establish the difference between the cover line and the small descriptors that sometimes follow.

I also kept to genre conventions by placing the barcode in the bottom right hand corner of the page. I chose to stick to this convention as it allows for the cashier and the reader to easily find the price and barcode due to it being in the typical place.

I feel that I challenged the typical image convention of front covers as they are normally mid close up’s clearly showing the models face, however, I chose to choose a different shot type for my magazine as I felt that would stand out from other magazines due to the image being so different. From the questionnaire that I conducted for my target audience, i discovered that fashion was a popular hobby, therefore i felt it was necessary to use a long shot to show the clothes that the model was wearing, rather than their facial expression.

I also feel that the secondary colour can be used in some circumstances to make certain details stand out to the reader. The image to the left shows how NME made use of two colours in their cover lines for these reasons. ‘Explicit’ has been written in red to draw the readers attention to this particular section.

Contents pageFor my contents page, i feel that I challenged some of the genre conventions as typically, the page will only have listings, simply with a descriptor and a page number. However, I chose to include images for the listings that corresponded to the cover lines. I feel that this will draw the readers attention to these articles before the other listings below, allowing readers to easily be able to find out the page number for the articles they have seen on the front cover which will be the ones that grabbed their attention and in some circumstances made them buy the magazine. By splitting the listings into two sections, it allows for the reader to easily find out which articles will appear every week and which will be one off’s.

For the other features of the page, I feel that I managed to maintain the genre conventions, for example, I used two different colours for my listing and my descriptors to allow readers to be able to distinguish the difference between them, and for some articles, quickly establish who or what the

article will be about, allowing them to make their mind up on whether they want to continue on to read the descriptor. The image below shows how another music magazine has used two different colours for these reasons. I included an editors word as this was the first edition of my

magazine. I feel that this was necessary as it allows for the editor to give a brief introduction or explanation into the magazines, and allows them to outline what it is they want to achieve etc. I felt that this was important as due to it being the first issue, all readers will be new to the magazine, therefore this may help them decide whether this is the right type of magazine for them.

Double page spreadFor my double page spread, I felt that I mainly stuck with he genre conventions, for example, if had my body copy organised into columns with justified text to make the appearance of them much tidier and clean cut. For the columns, I used Times New Roman as my font as this is the typical font for extensive text as it is easy on the eye for readers. I felt that this was important as the article itself was quite long. I feel that my standfirst was in a good position to be noticed as it stood out from the rest of the text as it had a larger and different font. This was important for me as my audience are mostly part-time workers or students in full time education, they only have small amounts of time for leisure, therefore

establishing whether they are interested in the topic of the article before reading is important.

I feel that I developed the convention of using a drop cap in articles as I wanted to have a very large drop cap for my article as I felt that it grabbed the readers attention as soon as they turned to the page. I feel that it signifies importance, which as it is the corresponding article to the main cover line, I felt was necessary. I also included an end blob at the end of my article to signify that this was the end. This ensures that the reader does not expect to find the article continued on the next page.

Finally I felt that I used the genre convention of having the page number and the date in the bottom right hand corner as readers will be able to see the page numbers clearly when flicking through the magazine as this is the typical position for page numbers.

OverallOverall, I feel that I kept to the forms and conventions of music magazines. I felt that it was important to keep to the conventions to give the magazine a sense of familiarity for the readers of the magazine. I wanted to ensure that the readers felt as if they were reading a magazine to make them comfortable due to knowing the layout and typical positions of features within the magazine. I felt that this was important especially for popular features such as the editors word on the contents page, the position on page numbers, and the image captions on the double page spread so that they would know where to look for these features and be able to find them easily and quickly.