In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge

Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Question 1

Cover

I have used an image of young, attractive girls with the use of instruments as props in the picture to make it obvious what the genre of the magazine is. This is what lots of real magazines do for example NME magazine does this to attract customers.

I have used words like exclusive, free and, in large fonts, well known bands and artist name to attract fans of those bands and artists and therefore encourage them to buy my product. The words like ‘best’ and ‘win’ are often used in real magazines to promote themselves and let the reader think that the magazine is worth its price and they are getting value for money because of exclusivity and a high standard of entertainment.

The colour scheme was chosen because of a focus group I held so I know that it would please a lot of customers. I makes it appealing to both genders and has a bright and clean look.

My masthead has similarities to Q and NME with its red and Black theme and it is short and memorable. I have also put the meaning of mine underneath so that customers know what it stands for. This information is very important in my magazine because it announces it genre and therefore attracts the right audience. It is also a play on words of the famous hard rock café and I think conventions like this help to attract potential buyers.

My image includes props of a guitar, bass guitar and drum sticks. This tells the reader straight away that this is a music magazine if they haven’t already guessed from other features. I was going to include a microphone but I thought it looked slightly more awkward and cheesy because I didn’t want the photo over-posed. Instead I moved the main singer slightly in front of the other members to make it clear that she is the lead singer. Again, this is a technique often used when one member is better know than the others. It means there is more chance of a fan spotting them on the cover because most people recognise the main singer first. The clothes I used were mainly based on an indie style. This includes things like collars and band style t shirts. Most wore dark colours apart from Kate’s mustard jumper as I didn’t want it too dark because it would get mixed up with a heavy rock genre.

Contents

I have stuck with the colour scheme and blocked some sections out in red in order to separate the from the rest of the page. I have used a slanted lines system again and cut off sections with black lines to make everything look bold and stand out. I have kept everything within their sections apart from the main cover story image of the band. I let this overlap because it made them look like they were coming off the page. They need to stand out as they are the main story. I didn’t give them props this time but used a slightly more

playful picture with sunglasses and more casual poses to make the contents look fun and interesting. I also think it was less important on the contents to use instruments because they have already seen the cover and know it’s a music magazine.

Q has a similar content layout to me here as it has pictures on one side and contents on the other. It also has number is the images where I do as well. It also has the blocked out red section at the top but used for a different reason. I wanted mine to be fairly similar to Q magazine as it has a similar style to what I was aiming for and is aimed at a similar audience. So if Q satisfies its audience then I know what that audience likes.

To make it even more clear I added the captions to the photos, again with the same colour scheme. This makes it even easier to navigate as a reader. I used the blue colour to highlight small parts such as ‘on the cover’ and ‘top tip’. These are things that attract the reader’s attention and so they need to stand out. I used a range of font sizes to separate basic information from detailed information so that people that want to just scan the page can get an easy idea by looking at the larger text.

I have laid out my contents in a neat list making it easy to understand, this makes magazines look more organised and Q magazine has done this to show how it is a very professional magazine and therefore worth buying.I created an album cover as a magazine is likely to have advertisements in it, especially music related products. My idea for the cover came from a band that is listed on my own cover, Kings of Leon and I feel fans of them would be idea customers for my magazine.

Double Page Spread

In my DPS I have included the word exclusive again to show how you couldn’t get this article anywhere else, and rarity is worth money so people won’t mine buying the product. I have seen this used in many magazines as the magazine industry is competitive and they need to please their audience. Again, I have used blue to highlight this information and put most other things in black and red. I have kept the masthead there as a reminder of the brand to the reader and the word nimbus still has it’s own specific logo. Most bands have this so I thought it made the magazine look more professional.

This is an image of a real double page spread where they use a play on words with the title linking it to one of the artist’s songs. The article is about Florence and the Machine and is titled USA Got the Love referring to her song You Got the Love. I have also done this by using ‘2000’ which is the name of their album.

I put a fact file because it gives some basic background information on the band in case the reader didn’t know much about them. I have seen this in NME -

Another thing I have included in my DPS is quotes from the article. This again, attracts the attention of the reader and makes them want to find out where that quote fits so they then read on. I have also used larger letters for the first letters of each question, I used a Q and A system because it was suggested by my audience. I have seen these techniques in other magazines and therefore I understand that it works and makes readers interested.

I used a black and white picture to fit completely with my colour scheme. I also thought it gave it a classy clean look. It goes over half of the page because I didn’t want my text too big and I think the most important thing on a DPS is the image to it needed to look big instead of small and insignificant. Again, I have seen this sort of thing in current magazines.

Black and white images