Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My final media product was the front cover, contents page and double page spread of a music magazine.
Before making them conducted research on different genres of music, finding out what types of people listen to certain genres and what the stereotypes and interests of those people are.

I also researched some different music magazines to analyze what different components make up the pages. I decided to stick to just analyzing rock music magazines as that was the genre of magazine I decided for my own, and by just analyzing these ones I would get a clear understanding of what components it takes to put together this style of magazine.

I had also analyzed a variety of different magazine for my preliminary task, in which I gained some understanding of the basic conventions of a magazine, for example on the magazine front cover, there is consistently a master head and an image. From this I also gained the knowledge that different styles of magazines have aspects of them that are unique to their style.

Front Cover

The majority of magazines, on the front cover have a main heading, strap line, main image, barcode and coverlines. But within these components, different aspects are changed, such as the fonts of any text, the positions on the page of each part and the colour scheme of the magazine.
For example the magazines that I researched, Kerrang and Rocksound, have some components that are the same and some that are different.

Kerrang Front Cover

Rocksound Front Cover

   

 These magazines being of the same genre are very similar, the strap lines are both at the top of the page with the main heading underneath it, both the barcodes are at the top of the page and the colour schemes are very similar with black, white and red predominantly being the main colours. But then the position of different cover lines are in different places and the amount of extra pictures on the page varies. I think the reason that these magazine stick with certain aspects is to make it clear to readers what style of magazine it is, for example the red, black and white colours would appeal more to listeners of rock music than other colours.

My Front Cover

So from this I came to the conclusion that my magazine should follow certain components of these magazines as the genre of it is the same as both Kerrang and Rocksound it would make it more easily depcicted as a rock magazine. So components such as edgy colours and fonts, pictures of bands on the front and the colour of the main heading were used on my magazine to relate it to these magazines.

Then I used the general conventions of the majority of magazines on my magazine such as the strap line and main heading at the top of the page, the main heading being the largest lettering on the page and in capital letters to make it stand out, an image filling up the entire page with coverline and headings in front of it, and a barcode, date and issue number prominant on the page.

The image that I decided to use on my front cover was an action shot of the band performing at a concert, this is quite common for music magazines to do this, as it shows the band in their element. But most of the time the image on the fromt cover is usually done in front of a green screen or plain background. I decided that doing this could be quite boring and would blend in this other magazines so I decided that an action shot would be better, it makes it look as if there is a bit more going on.

I then decided that I would change some of the components so they were completely different to Kerrang and Rocksound, as there are lots of rock magazines out on the market, I wanted mine to stand out against the others, so I made the colour scheme completely different to the red, white and black colour schemes of most rock magazines and went for a brighter colour scheme of green, pink, white and dark blue, but still made sure the colours were edgy to make sure that it was easily recogniseable as a rock magazine. I also changed the position of the barcode and coverlines, but this wasn't to go against the basic conventions of the rock magazines but to fit in aroung my main image, which is what most magazines do and the positions of things varies with each issue.

I didn't really go against the conventions of what most magazines do, as I think if you stray to far away from what most magazines look like it no longer looks like a magazine and people would be less appealed to buy it. The motive of most magazines is to make their magazine stand out against the rest, make their magazine more eyecatching, and make it look as fun and interesting as possible. So you could say that this is one of the main conventions of a magazine, to make it look different, which is a convention I followed throughout.

Contents Page

For my contents page I looked at both Kerrang and Rocksound contents pages to help me get a clear idea what the conventions of rock magazine were.





Rocksound Contents Page







My Contents Page



Kerrang Contents Page



Whilst analyzing both these magazines I noticed that the Kerrang magazine had a main heading saying 'contents' clearly written in large, bright writing at the top of the page, whilst Rocksound didn't have this at all. I thought that having this main heading made it clear to the readers what was on that page and not having it on there made Rocksound seem less ordered, so I decided to follow the convention of having the main heading saying 'contents' on my page.

Both Kerrang and Rocksound have many images on their contents page, on the Rocksound one the images are ordered and look neatly set but because there is so much of it, its really distracting when reading the text on the page. On the Kerrang contents page the pictures are all scattered around bottom half of the page, I feel as if this makes the page look messy aswell, so I decided not to use lots of picture on my front cover for those reasons and fill up the space where pictures could have gone with more writing which would be more informative to the reader.

On the Kerrang contents page I like the large image filling up the top half of the page, I feel this splits up the page and make the writing look less daunting to read.

On both the magazine contents pages they have both split up their text into columns, this is very common for magazines and newspaper to do this for large amounts of writing as it makes it easier to read, I used this convention on my contents page as I felt it would make my page look more organized and clear.

Both magazines also have a message from the editor on their contents page, aswell as a picture and signature from the editor, i like this as it makes the reader feel a bit more personal and intouch with the magazine, dragging them into the magazine even more, so I carried this through onto my contents page to make the readers of my magazine feel more welcomed by it.

Double Page Spread

I looked at a double page spread from both Kerrang and Rocksound to help me create my double page spread.



Whilst I was looking at both these magazines, I liked the way that Kerrang has put their image on one half of the page and their text on the other. This is a convention I used on my double page spread as it helped split the page up and made it look a lot clearer. But I moved the picture from the right side of the page to the left as I thought that having a picture as the first thing you look at is more appealing. I didn't particually like the way that rocksound had an image filling up the entire spread as I felt that it made the page look to clustered, and the writing less appealling to read.
On both magazines they have used a variation on different fonts, and font sizes. I like this in a magazine as I think that it makes the pages look less boring and makes things stand out a bit more, this is a convention that I stuck to whilst making my double page spread.
On both these magazines they have used columns to set out the main text on the page, many magazines do this as it makes the writing easier to read and helps set the page out making it look neater and more appealing to read. I thought it would be sensible to stick to this convention as there is a purpose behind why so many magazines do it and I like the effect it gives.
Both magazines have also stuck to very plain coloured writing for their main text, most other magazines do this aswell. The purpose of this is to make the text easier to read, if all off the text was in a bright colour it wouldn't be very nice to read. So I stuck to this convention as I want my readers to be able to read the magazine comfortably.
On the Kerrang magazine all the colours that they have used is very dull, even the picture is in dull colours. I don't particually like this as I feel that it makes the magazine look quite boring, so I didn't follow this in my magazine.