In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions

of real media products?

Evaluation 1

The majority of my music magazine is very conventional to modern music magazines, such as Q, NME and also selections of Kerrang. The colour scheme I chose to use I believe is the most conventional part of the magazine, as I use Black, White and Red as the foundation for my pages as seen in Q and NME, although there are some other elements of colour such as Gold and Blue, which are not typically seen in this genre of magazine, but fit well with the conventional colours

The colour scheme of my front page consists mainly of black, compared to the Q and NME selection, however, there are elements of dark red that I decided to use to try and incorporate the codes and conventions of a typical magazine, whilst the mainly black colour challenges typical music magazine colour schemes.

Another colour I chose to use to stand out was the gold I used for my main puff/ image anchorage. This kind of colour isn’t typical in most magazines, although is seen on occasion, but not in such a bright shade as I have used. I decided to use this colour, because, although it challenges typical conventions, it challenges them whilst keeping in style with the magazine and its genre.

The layout of my magazine is also quite conventional, including the subject of the puffs of information on the front cover. My image is very central, with direct eye contact with the audience, like most artists on real magazines, with the mast head at the top of the page, a central anchorage point that stands out amongst the other puffs and the typical layout of puffs around the edge of the image. This convention is very typical of magazines like Q and NME, which usually have a similar layout.

Main image has direct mode of address

There is a bold masthead signifying the brand of the magazine. This masthead is the same for every edition.

My masthead stands out from the rest of the magazine and signifies the brand

Main subject/ image anchorage stands out amongst the rest of the information on the page.

The anchorage on my FrontPage stands out well, and is also a different colour to the rest of the puffs on the page, making it more striking

Puffs surround the main image but do not cover the face of the artist. All the puffs are also the same colour, creating a scheme.

Puffs surround artists, all stand out from each other because they are different colours, unlike the Q magazine.

Main image has direct mode of address

The content I have included on the front page is very suitable to the genre of the magazine, covering subjects like upcoming concerts, the top albums of the year, exclusive interviews with existing artists that my audience like and award ceremonies.

These kind of topics are conventional in magazines such as Q and NME which were the inspiration for my own magazine.

In such magazines, there is a main artist that is focused on for their main feature, mine being the up and coming ‘Melodie’, and also smaller interviews with other artists about either their upcoming concerts or album releases, so there is plenty of content to appeal to everyone. My magazine achieves this also, with interviews with ‘ You Me At Six’ and ‘Nina Nesbitt’.

The contents page to my magazine is one of the most conventional pages of the whole magazine. I kept the layout and colour scheme fairly accurate to the majority of music magazines as I could, whilst introducing a few challenges as well.

One of the least conventional parts of the page is the images which have a blue hue to them, affecting the colour scheme as a whole.

On the other hand, I have stuck with the red, white and black theme that was present in the front page, creating a house style.

I have used the same font to make sure the theme flows throughout the whole magazine, like most magazines do, as they all begin to link in this way.

The content I have decided to cover in the contents page is very similar to the kind of coverage seen in magazines such as Q and NME, down to the topics of NEWS, CONCERTS and REVIEWS, as they were very popular subjects covered in real magazines.

Main Feature Page • My main feature page is a little less conventional compared to other feature pages in magazines like NME and Q, however, only challenges a few aspects. For example, most magazine's feature pages have a mainly white background, with the main image placed to one side, whilst my magazine makes use of the whole image, the text covering sections that do have a lot o focus, like the wooden door. However, my colour scheme is still quite conventional, using the black, red and white foundations, although I have included Gold and Blue as little challenges, creating a theme across the magazine.Other conventional features include highlighted quotes from the text, which I have enlarged in red font, like many other music magazines.My main image is also very similar to other magazines, making use of direct address and eye contact, but also sticks with the theme of the article.

Overall, the majority of my magazine conforms to typical music magazines and their common

style of genre such as layout and content, however, also challenges some small features

such as colour scheme to create a different and unique magazine design.