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

Most magazines follow a list of standard conventions which are there to make the magazine look as effective as possible. There are a number of magazines which stick to the conventions very tightly and others stray from them a bit. Different sections of magazines have different conventions. For example, a magazine cover has a masthead consisting of the name of the magazine. Pages inside the magazine do not have to follow these conventions. However they do follow conventions which differ from those of the cover of a magazine. Some conventions of pages of magazines are pull quotes, gutters and kickers. Some magazines may not follow the conventions exactly and might have their own unique style.

The magazine that I produced belongs to the music genre of 'Alternative' which is quite a wide genre. I took inspiration from a few magazines, such as Kerrang! and Rocksound. Both of these magazines cater to a similar genre to what I wanted to focus my magazine on. Eventhough Rocksound has the word 'rock' in the title it doesn't just cater to rock music. To the right are examples of covers of both of these magazines.

Magazine Cover and Coventions

When creating my magazine I stuck to the conventions quite a lot. The title I chose for my magazine was 'Addicted' which connotes an addiction to music and fits with the genre of music I have chosen because people who listen to the 'Alternative' type of music tend to be very passionate about music as a whole, hence an 'Addiction' to it. The word addiction also could connote drugs which could then show the rebellion of teenagers because drugs are illegal. This could fit with the fact readers of my magazine could be rebellious. Not necessarily by taking drugs though. One convention of a magazine is a masthead, and I feel that not only does my cover have a masthead, but the masthead fits with the genre of the music. The colour of my masthead is black and red and the font I used fits with the Alternative genre really well. The font is rough with parts missing and the red I have added to it gives it a more interesting look and helps if fit with the genre even more. My front cover consists of one large image

and two smaller ones. The main image is a cropping of the image that can be

seen to the right flipped horizontally. I chose to take a picture of somebody playing a guitar for the front cover because I felt that it would connect to the people who like the genre that the magazine is. Also someone playing a guitar looks more interesting than someone just standing there. I chose to take the picture with the subject look down and not directly at the camera because it fits with the idea of the genre being low-key. If the subject was looking straight into the camera the picture would be more 'in your face' whereas I feel taking it like this gives the picture a softer feel and also slighlty mysterious because he's looking away. The fact that the cover model of my magazine isn't looking at the camera is different to most magazines. The subject of the photo is a 20 year old. I chose a young person for my cover because the alternative genre if filled with a lot of young bands, and the target audience for my magazine includes people of the age of the subject. The other images on my cover are an image of a guitar and then another of two females. I chose to put females on the cover as well because the target audience is people of both sexes and I felt putting females on the cover of the magazine would more likely attract females to the magazine as they'd know it wasn't just a magazine for males. Another convention of magazine covers that I followed was that coverlines were included. Coverlines are there to give a taste of what is inside the magazine. I included a number of coverlines which do this. One coverline includes the word 'exclusive'. I chose to use this word as it would intrigue people and they would want to buy the magazine to see this exclusive content. I also included the following conventions on my cover: Datelines, barcode, price distinctive colour scheme and a selling line/catchphrase which is 'The UKs only total alternative magazine'.

Contents Page and Double Page Spread Conventions

picture to show colour scheme

On the double page spread and contents page there were less conventions to follow than there were for the magazine cover. On the double page spread I have stuck to the conventions of having a kicker, gutters, a dropcap, captions, white space, sidebar and a body of text. There is one convention that I didn't include in my DPS, which was subheadings. My article was an interview and I felt that subheadings weren't reallty necessary. The pictures on my DPS are of the same person who is on my cover. One of the photos is of the subject leaning against a wall (see image to the right) which I edited to look like that he was leaning against the center of the double page spread so that when folded he would be leaning against a fold. I feel that this looks good and is also quite imaginative. The other two pictures include 'Sayer' playing guitar and an electronic piano. I chose to take pictures of him playing instruments so that they fitted with the style of the magazine clearly. Also, the images connect to the interview where it says Sayer records all the instrument tracking for himself. The colour scheme of my double page spread is very similar to the colour theme I have used on the cover, except the colour yellow is included on my double page spread. The main colour scheme of my magazine is red and black which I feel connates danger. My double page spread is mainly filled with text which is often an offput for people when they read magazines. I could have gotten rid of some text to make the page seem less full but I didn't want to get rid of any of the interview because I feel it all is necessary. The article itself is written informally which I feel would allow my target audience to connect to the article more easily and makes the article easier to read than if it was formal.

My Contents page once again follows the same colour scheme as the cover and double page spread. I chose to do this because I feel it makes the products look better overall and you can see that they belong to the same magazine. My contents page includes regulars, features and a variety of images. The images on my contents page are of a guitar, the cover model and two girls. I have used the image of the two femals as the main page as I felt to put another large image from the cover story would be a bit repetitive. So I opted for choosing another subject as the main image. I went for two females because I felt that because the target audience is male and femals I should include some pictures of females in it. I feel that my magazine pages do represent the genre I chose. The colour scheme definitly fits with it and the masthead also really fits with it. The pictures I have used also fit with the genre. They all represent music in some form, from the obviousness of musical instruments to the not so obvious posed band photos. The genre 'Alternative' would be considered very gig friendly and also a lot of bands that people put together as a hobby would fit into this genre. The photos I have taken do not seem too professional. They seem like something that could be taken for small bands, which would hopefully allow the readers to connect with them.