1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

Kira Cissell

At the start of making my magazine before all the production work I analysed and looked at different music magazines in my genre, for inspiration or to know what to include in my magazine. This research helped me with my planning and producing of my own magazine as it gave me inspiration within the Rock genre.

Throughout my magazine I have included generic conventions, where appropriate. During my term I learnt about these conventions in class and homework. I have researched various magazines and internet sites to make an analysis of all the codes and conventions which had been used on the front cover of their magazines. This task enabled me to identify generic conventions which were used in magazines and to understand the way in which a magazines presentation works. For my front cover, I included conventions I had learnt about such as main cover lines, cover lines, left thirds etc. These tasks helped me to quickly gain knowledge into generic conventions of music magazines but also the way in which I should apply them when creating my own magazine.

As an outcome of my research I have gained a clear understanding into generic conventions and the layout of a front cover. I considered how to apply each convention should be typically displayed and followed the rules of conventions within a music magazine. The main cover line took all the attention compared to the cover lines. The URL and date line were merged together on-top of the masthead. I have also included a barcode and price.

Front cover

Some of the conventions I had learnt about a music magazine enabled me to challenge myself and add my own unique identity for my magazine. The magazine covers that I researched were alive with their front covers often featuring more than one piece of photography. The front cover of these magazines commonly had a main imagine and also another photograph within the cover lines to promote the inside of the magazine. I wanted to target my audience to focus on the main cover line which had relation to my main imagine of my main artist.

On the front cover of my magazine, I choose to add my own identity within the conventions. To achieve this, I changed the cover on

Challenges and Developments

The layout for my magazine cover was researched from a number of magazines including Q, NME and Kerrang. These magazines showed the Rock Genre Music, which helped in my design. Using their masthead I envisaged how mine would look, including the font and colour, which would draw the reader’s attention. Sometimes, they also used a short masthead on the left hand side, which I also considered. My magazine cover had to be catchy, which would be a good feature, with enough but not too much information, would ensure the reader would want more.

The style of cover lines was a consideration, as when looking at a magazine, the cover lines really should stand out. The backgrounds should contrast well with the overall colour scheme of the front cover.

The positioning of my cover lines was very important to me as these make the magazine professional without subtracting from the main image. Careful thought and a lot of planning enabled me to achieve my result.

Influences

The layout of my magazines contents page was inspired by some aspects of Q magazine and NME. I began to draft my contents page using inspirations from various information I have obtained during my course. The use of images, brief context with page numbers, including layout, inspired me to utilize a colour scheme that was adapted with my front magazine cover. By using a variation of images, including the use of different sizes and text fonts made my magazine contents page more stimulating and attractive. This was also consistent with the Rock Genre Magazines that I had researched, which gave my magazine an identity and a professional quality. Within my contents page, I also included the feature article from the magazine cover, which helps with continuity. My research also discovered that advertisements were also featured within the contents page. I decided not to follow this, as I wanted my magazine to be unique compared with other influences. I thought that it was important that the magazines identity was carried through to the contents page.

Contents

My first influences for my double page spread were NME and Q magazine. My plan for the layout was that of pictures alongside the text. I was inspired by this layout method as it drew your attention.

My main influence was the NME double page spread. With this in mind I decided to use a quote for my main focus of the title for the article. The text and font was presented in such a way that it stood out on the page and immediately grabbed the audiences attention. I was influenced by the artist which was featured on the right hand side of the page whereas the article was on the left hand side and gave a good relationship between the title, main artist and article. I decided to keep the colours consistent throughout the whole of my magazine, which brought together the front page, contents page and double page spread for uniformity.

Double page spread