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

of a real media product?I have conformed to many conventions of existing music magazines, for example using a 3 colour scheme

throughout the magazine, which aids in adding continuity. My chosen colour scheme was red, white, and black and I used this throughout. Conventionally, magazines only use 3 colours as using too many could make the

magazine look too gaudy and unprofessional and I feel my chosen three colours look effective and fit in well with my indie themed magazine. My front cover model, Dylan, was included on the front page, contents, and double

page spread to signify his importance to the magazine and emphasises the fact he is the main focus of this particular issue. By not including him on the contents and DPS and just on the cover would make the magazine lack consistency and not show his importance. In terms of fonts, I have used a selection of fonts throughout my

magazine however I have maintained a clear, bold font for subtitles and the mast head, and the same font is used for the feature stories in my contents page again to add consistency. Consistency and continuity is extremely

important when producing a magazine as it gives it the professional feel that all magazines need in order to be successful. I have carried out a conventions analysis on all three of my products to explore these factors.

MAST HEAD: My mast head is placed conventionally on the front cover, as it is at the top of the cover and is the largest text on the page. Mastheads are usually in a large bold text, which mine is, and is placed about the main image. I used a bold colour that contrasts with the plain background to make the masthead stand out more and make it the most noticeable thing on the page, as well as the image. Often, the mastheads are capitalized, which makes them stand out more which I also chose to do, and by using an iconic text that is associated with the magazine makes it more identifiable to the consumer when on a shelf in a shop. I decided against using an acronym like my model magazine NME as I felt that my title was not long enough to be in need of one and is snappy enough as it is.

MAIN IMAGE: Like other magazines, my image is placed in the centre of the magazine, with the feature stories surrounding it. My model is looking directly into the audience which again is conventional as it catches the eye of the customer and encourages them to purchase it and gives them a sense of connection with the cover star. The model’s costume conforms to my colour scheme (red, white and black). The main image is large and central, and this identifies their significance to the issue.

COLOUR SCHEME: All magazines have a colour scheme, as it adds continuity and consistency to the magazine and is an extremely important factor. I chose to follow the 3 colour rule of white, black, and red and everything on this cover is on one of those three colours. My artist’s name is in black and contrasts with the white background, which makes it stand out more and the feature stories are all in black and red.

FEATURE STORIES: Conventionally the main story always appears on in the centre of the cover, spanning over the main image of the artist it features. I also chose to conform to this convention and make my feature stories surround the main image using the came colour system as the main story however made them smaller than the main stories which shows their lesser significance. The artists name is the biggest thing on the cover and is easily readable on a shelf, with the pull quote slightly smaller underneath which again is very common on all magazines.

PLUG: The plug of my magazine is ‘FREE POSTERS’ however unlike most magazines, it’s not particularly big and is accompanied by no secondary images of the posters inside, which I think would have been a good addition to the cover. The plugs are designed to draw readers in, especially by advertising stuff as ‘FREE’ which immediately entices readers.

FOOTER: Footers are positioned at the bottom of the page and usually stretch across the whole page. They usually advertise what else is included in the magazine and in music magazines it is usually additional artists, which I chose to conform to. Having a wide selection of artists on the cover gives the potential customer a good idea of who is included in the magazine without having to buy it and they are more likely to purchase the magazine even if they only see a couple of artists they like on the cover.

BARCODE: Barcodes are usually positioned in the bottom right of the magazine and accompanied by the date and price of the magazine and I included all these features on my cover in the conventional position. This is useful for the reader as if the price is placed in the conventional place its very easy for them to see the price immediately if they know where to look.

TITLE OF MAGAZINE: Usually, the magazines title is repeated again at the top of the contents page, which adds continuity to the magazine. However, I chose to just include the ‘M’ out of ‘MAVERICK’ which could become iconic and is always related to the magazine. Instead of just having ‘CONTENTS’ written at the top of page, I decided to have ‘THIS WEEK’ instead, which is similar to NME. This gives my magazine a slightly younger vibe which relates back to my target audience

MAIN STORY: The main story of the magazine is usually accompanied with an image of the person the story is relating to, which I have done on my contents page. Breaking usual conventions, I didn’t include a brief description of what the story would entail, as I feel this would encourage people to read the whole magazine. I used a different image of my model for the contents page to add variety

LAYOUT: My layout is typical of a contents page, and I chose to use NME to model my page on. The features are all in columns, which is conventional of a contents page. By having the page numbers in line it makes it easier for the reader to quickly see what page number the stories they want to see are on and access them quickly. It follows the same three colour rule as the rest of the magazine and this aids it in adding continuity and by using sub-headings it makes is easier to identify what story would come under each category.

DATE AND ISSUE NUMBER: The date and issue number is positioned underneath the mast-head which is conventional of a magazine. Although the date is also on the cover, it let’s the reader quickly identify what issue they are reading and whether the magazine is up to date or not and lets the reader see whether they have missed an issue or not.

FEATURE STORIES: The feature stories are positioned to the right of the contents page and each story is accompanied by a brief sentence stating what the story is about. They are positioned in conventional columns, which makes them stand out more and easier to see what category they fall under. They are accompanied with clear page numbers so it is easier for the reader to immediately see what page the story is on for easy access.

BAND INDEX: I modelled my contents page on NME, and a conventional aspect of their contents is a band index. In NME. The band index is always on the left of the page, and gives a list of what bands are mentioned in the magazine and what page they are on. I decided to adopt this convention in my magazine and chose to set it out similarly as NME.

FOOTER: Many magazine have a ‘PLUS’ feature at the bottom of the page, which advertises even more content. I adapted this to my magazine, by including an extra feature story which I also accompanied with secondary images. I included one of these footers as its very conventional of magazines and allowed me to have even more stories in my magazine.

OTHER FEATURES: Conforming to my target audience of young people, I have included social network links on my contents page. Especially now, social networks dominate and nearly every single media product will have links to their social networking sites on their magazines. I also included a QR code, as most smartphones have a QR scanner which once scanned a code, takes the reader to exclusive content. Again, these codes now appear in most magazines and are starting to become conventional.

PULL QUOTE: Usually on DPS when a celebrity is being interviewed, the masthead is a quote ‘pulled’ from the text. This is used as it pulls the reader into reading the article, and gives them an insight into what the interview is about. Usually, the pull quote is quite ambiguous and can be taken in several different ways, the readers are intrigued and read on. Another convention of the pull quotes is that is spans across both pages, which I chose to do in my article. It emphasises the importance of the quote and makes the page look full, even if the story is short.

MAIN IMAGE: Usually, the model is looking directly into the camera (direct address) which pulls the reader into the article and so they feel a sense of connection with the celebrity. The image usually takes up a full page, which I chose to do as this signifies Dylan’s importance to the issue. His clothes also conform to my colour scheme (red, white and black) which is very conventional of a DPS.

TEXT: The text is positioned in conventional columns, which is conventional of all magazines and other media printed products. It allows for more text to fit the page, look neater and be clear and easy to read and follow. The text is plain and simple which makes it easier to read, which is needed in a magazine. Certain quotes from the article have been alarged and made bold to make them stand out more from the text, and these interesting quotes encourage the readers to read the whole article. Key names in the article (Dylan and Jake Bugg) have been put into italics and coloured in red to show their importance.

STAND FIRST: Stand firsts are used at the start of the article, giving a brief introduction to what the article is about and what it concerns. These are conventional of DPS as it allows the readers to see what theyre about to read. Often they end on ellipses which encourages the reader to read on, however I ended mine on a cliff hanger type sentence instead, which is conventional of a stand first.

DROP CAP: Drop caps are usually put at the start of an article and is an enlarged first letter. They are eye-catching as it is the first thing the reader see when they read the article, and makes it stand out. They are very conventional to magazines but I challenged this convention by placing my drop cap in the stand first and not the main article.

PAGE NUMBER AND MASTHEAD: All pages in magazines are numbered to allow for readers to use the contents page to easily access the pages they want to see. I coloured my page numbers in red which added continuity to the magazine, but also accompanied the page number with the magazine website. Also, at the top of the page, I inserted the ‘M’ from the ‘Maverick’ masthead, as the magazine’s masthead are usually printed small on every page to add consistency. I also included an ‘exclusive’ banner which many magazines do to emphasise the fact the story is unique to them.

ContinuityI created continuity throughout my magazine, which is extremely important when creating a media product. In order

to maintain this consistency, I used similar fonts throughout my magazine although not all the same, which added variety while still keeping the continuity. My colour scheme of red, black and white remained throughout the entirety

of my product, as it ties all the pages together and fit in really well with my genre. I also made sure my model’s costume matched this colour scheme also. Another way of ensuring consistency was making sure the page numbers

advertised on the contents and features actually matched my article, which made the magazine more professional and likely to actually appear on a magazine rack for sale. The same model was also used on the front cover, contents page and DPS which adds continuity, as its very unlikely on a real magazine that the main artist that is featured on the cover does not appear on the contents and is the topic of the main article. The lay out of all three products conform to the

majority of conventions of usual magazines, as this is extremely important and I explored this in my conventions analysis.