Evaluation By Rachel Ta

Qu1) - In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Title/Masthead

• Those were conventions of masthead from actually music magazine. One of them was the one I designed.

• CURVE was my masthead!• Looking at research from the start of front covers and looking at mastheads has

given me ideas and has helped me design my own masthead. • MOJO and VIBE has influenced me a lot in my own design because I wanted to

keep it looking conventional and clear. For the colour of my masthead, I wanted to keep it simple and bold rather than a magazine like ‘Billboard’ with lots of colours. MOJO and VIBE are both bold and clear to the reader which is the look I wanted to go for, it also made it easy for recognition for the readers. Most mastheads I looked at were 3 dimensional so I wanted to follow the same conventions. I didn’t want to put a black/shadow to it because I wanted to make it original so I decided to put grey which is a lighter way to make the white stand out.

• I had trouble with the cut out of my letters but eventually found a way to do it. I thought me doing the cut-outs was creative and make my masthead, really unique.

• I think my masthead turned out well (even with all the hassle) and the style and colour hit my target audience. It created a bold effect but also challenging conventions with my own style.

Mise en scène of images• The images I used for my magazine was a school stage and outside on a field.

The stage made it look realistic and followed conventions because the artist are preforming live. By taking the pictures while they were playing made it look more realistic.

• The images for my front cover and double page spread reflected the genre of the magazine which is pop/indie. The content page images attract both males and females because I’ve used 2 pictures which are mixed genders.

• I used a variety of camera angles and shots to capture different emotions and used the natural light (sun). For my front cover I used a close mid-shot to create a statement and attract the reader which follows conventions of music magazines. The image for my double page spread is looking away; this conveys the artist having thoughts of her own and not thoughts of the media. It shows that this artist is real just like everybody else and has insecurities and not just fame. This challenges music magazine but also follow conventions.

• I did slightly edit them on Photoshop.

Costumes and Props• The costumes I used for my Photoshop

were pop/indie clothing, the clothing is important because it reflects the genre of the magazine which would attract the audience. A number of props were used in the making of my magazine. There was equipment like guitars to give a realistic feel to the photos. The costumes followed conventions for this particular genre but also unconventionally to other magazines. Magazines can use clothing to express a genre which is an advantage to magazines.

• For my front over and double page spread, a prop used which is unconventional is Dr. Dre Beats however still follows because I have linked it to the competition that you could win.

People• Altogether I used a mix of males and females which are all young adults

and teenagers. This targets my magazine to a younger audience which is what I am aiming for. I have mixed my genders to my magazine but males are shown more because of the band ‘The Charlie Vaughans’. The Charlie Vaughans are young adults which show young artist and their goals. This creates prosumers for the readers connecting them together. Even though I have used more males than female, my front cover and my double page spread is female, this shows that this magazine is not biased.

Font and Style• The fonts I used of my magazine reflect the genre of the magazine. I wanted my

font of my masthead to be original and challenge conventions. I was going to used ‘DaFont’ but it was too pixelated which didn’t look good on my front cover. However ‘DaFont’ helped me by giving me ideas. I created my own masthead by using a bold and plain font and cutting out the letters by using white textboxes. It was time consuming but was worthwhile because my masthead has a big impact. For each page I thought about how the font creates the genre of the magazine and followed that throughout.

Copy/Written Content• In my magazine the style of language

reflected on the genre and the age of the audience which are young adults. I didn’t want that throughout my magazine because I want to reach to a wider audience but I used slang on my puffs. If I used slang throughout it would have limited my audience. If I was to do it again I would of added direct speech to involve my readers and reach to them to a personal level. Punctuation was important and needed to be used appropriately. I used exclamation marks to emphasize the magazine puffs and sub-headings. I used the magazine VIBE as influenced for the written content because of the used of casual language.

How is the genre reflected in your magazine?

• My magazine genre is pop/indie and I wanted to reflect the genre as much a possible. I looked at trends and what’s in and what’s not. The costumes of the artists and props created an edgy yet on trend feel. The image I used on my content is 2 boys singing loudly which shows a real live show feel. By using all my images, it demonstrates the feel of the magazine and its genre by using instruments such as guitars. The colour used also reflects this by using bold/vibrant colours which gives the magazine a pop edge. Overall I think my magazine hit my target audience by using appropriate fashion, colours and camera angles, this all reflects onto the pop/indie genre. But I feel I could of given a much more convincing indie genre to my magazine.

Layout of my front cover• The layout of my front cover is quite conventional. I challenge

myself but also limited myself to fit into the magazine industry. I have used aspects from magazines but also used my own individual effects to make mine stand out from the rest of the magazines in the market. for instant, I used a full scale of my image and placed it in the centre, a lot of magazine do this but I have kept the background of mine whereas stereotypical magazine removed the background. This has automatically made my magazine look a bit different because it shows artists in natural surroundings compared to images taken in the studio. I used VIBE front cover as my main inspiration and influence on my design. The masthead and how they placed the subheading into a long list helped me achieve what I wanted for my magazine.

Layout of content page

• My content page has elements that follow convention of music magazines. For example it features a WIN plug. I very much focused on a content page from NME when I was creating my own. I feel that it must conform to the convention of an existing music magazine. However I have use a dark colour background rather than a white background.

Layout of double page spread• The double page spread layout followed conventions to

music magazines. I found difficult to make the double spread because I wanted it to be different to other magazines. There was 2 main inspirations I used when I was creating my DSP. The Lady Gaga DSP with the massive red ‘L’ and the Black Eyed Peas DPS with a layout similar to questions and answers. My image took a whole page which follow conventions and also making the artist staring at the reader creates a connection from artist to reader. The pull quote wad another device I used, placing it on the image, to draw the reader to not one side of the page.

Conclusion• Overall in my magazine I feel that I have followed

conventions, although challenging certain aspects. Following conventions is important for keeping within target market of existing magazine by follow certain trends, for example the layout of the magazine. Keeping with conventions I would know it will satisfy the audience expectations however if I had to go back and do it again, I would like to challenge the convention a lot more due to the demanding audience.