Main Task: Evaluation Q1

Q1. In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Front cover:

At the beginning of our media project we analyzed music magazine covers, contents pages and double page spreads to look at the conventions used and to see whether/how any of them challenged typical conventions. There are many ways in which my music magazine uses typical conventions. It also attempts to develop and challenge some. I tried to incorporate the usual conventions in my music magazine as to make it more professional and realistic. Starting with my magazine front cover, the first convention I followed is the masthead. I used a large masthead and placed it at the top of the page, behind my subject’s head. I then used a font that I found on Photoshop called Bauhaus 93, as I felt the bulky 'bubble' text would fit in with the masthead name "liquid bass" as well as representing the dub step theme. After choosing the font, I used Photoshop to manipulate it and make some changes. I gave the word 'BASS' a black inner glow, a light blue stroke and added a bevel and emboss. I left the word 'liquid' with just a light blue stroke. Also, I placed the masthead behind my subject’s head, as it seems to give a professional look to my work, like a real magazine. The last

convention I followed regarding my masthead is placing a strap line at the top of my screen consisting of the names of a few well known dub step and dance artists: Chase and status, Skrillex, David Guetta and dead mau5.

Although I only found three music magazines with a strap line like this, and only one was a dance magazine, I still feel that this is a good convention to add to a magazine, giving the reader a few names to relate with, which is why I followed it.

The next two conventions, which I followed, are the barcode and the selling line. A barcode is used in every type and genre of magazine, as the distribution team adds it to the magazine instead of the design team. This is because the barcode has to be programmed in order to deal with commercial problems like the sorting and purchasing of the magazine. I added a selling line to the magazine as it is a

n important selling point of a magazine, and can be found on all magazines in some way or another. It is used by practically every magazine design team these days because it gives another chance to interact with your readers and reveals the main focus of my magazine to them. For this reason I felt it was incredibly necessary to include a selling line in my magazine.

I added a selling line to the magazine as it is an important selling point of a magazine, and can be found on all magazines in some way or another. It is used by practically every magazine design team these days

because it gives another chance to interact with your readers and reveals the main focus of my magazine to them. For this reason I felt it was incredibly necessary to include a selling line in my magazine

Another convention which I followed is cover-lines, most of which I placed in the left hand side. These have been widely used within the large majority of music magazines I have seen in my life, as they are another main factor used to draw the reader’s interest. Cover lines are predominantly brightly colored and laid out in straight, short paragraphs. As well as catching the readers attention, they also give the reader an insight into the contents of your magazine, allowing readers to make an instant decision on whether the magazine has information which will interest them or not. For this purpose it is important to ensure that your cover-lines are eye-catching, and that you can make them sound as interesting as possible while using very little words. The informing text is the same in all of my cover lines apart from the main cover line, which wrote using a number of different fonts. By doing this, I have challenged a convention, as it is rare for magazines to have a large number of different fonts on the front cover. This is because a large number of different fonts can become confusing for the readers and may deter them from picking up the ma

gazine. Challenging this particular convention was a risk, but I felt that the jumble of fonts will bring the words 'messy' and 'madness' to mind, which are often seen to be related to the dub step and dance theme. I placed my main cover-line on the bottom left of my front cover, so that the right side of my magazine.

In terms of the image, which I used for my magazine cover, I found that there isn’t a “dominant” or “popular” preference when it comes to choosing your camera angle/shot. A good camera shot to use would be a medium close up, as it only shows the face, allowing you to communicate to you’re target audience using nothing but your model/subjects expression alone. This is good for R&B and rap magazines, as artists from those genres are m

ost often perceived to be angry, rough or have an attitude. For my magazine I decided to use a medium long shot of my model/subject, as I felt that his laid back/casual posture was very similar to the attitude you see in dub step, D&B, and dance these days, as similar to rock artists they portray a kind of rebel persona. Also I felt that my model/subjects posture was an important part of the image.

Contents page:

Next comes the contents page. Being the second page, usually coming directly after your front page (or sometimes separated by advertisements), the contents page needs to be consistent; in terms of theme, mood and colour scheme. The first convention which i displayed in my contents page was categories. This is the most recognisable convention, and it could be argued that it is categories are so widely used and accepted that they have become necessary. Although i followed this convention, I did not style my categories in a usual manner. It is most common for categories to be placed on the side, or in the middle of the page as vertical lists.

I originally chose to lay my contents page out like this because I intended to place a number of corner stops and vectors around the side of the page on photoshop. As I could not find a way of continuing this on the front cover I decided to discontinue it, leaving my contents page looking empty and dull, a serious mistake. The next convention i followed was including photos to go with the story's. This convention is used constantly within the industry, and again, seems to be a convention which is always followed.

Usually there is at least three images included on a contents page, to give readers a visual idea of what they will find in your magazine. I placed two images on my contents page, as the cartoon vector on the right hand side took up a generous amount of space and already gave my contents page a strong visual boost. Also, I had quite a few story's which I wanted to include in the contents page, and felt that if I added more images I would not have enough space for the text.

Double page spread:

Moving swiftly on to my double page spread, believe I followed almost every convention in an attempt to make my magazine look more professional. I tried to keep it simple, using a black and red gradient for my background as to continue the look which I established on my contents page. The left side contained the image of my subjects, while the right side contained my columns of text. I placed a quote from the subjects above their image, and placed the title on the right side above the columns. The font which i used was very simple, and I feel it fits best with the subjects as they supposed to represent neutrality. I continued to use the same font for the main text as i have used in the contents page and front cover, as this helps to make the magazine look more professional as a hole. I used a blue stroke around the quote and title, so that readers would have no difficulty reading the text. As the main text is white I decided that I would not need to use a stroke for it. my text was arranged in two columns, as to follow the usual conventions of a double page spread and also to help make the page look neat and tidy.