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

forms and conventions of real media products?

Mason Goddard

Forms & Conventions

• Conventions:– A way in which something is usually done.

• There are many conventions in all types of magazines, with the general ones for a front cover, for example, being a clear masthead, a main image, a headline to accompany the main image and sub-headings.

• Forms:– The visible shape or configuration of something.

• Magazines – generally – are all of a similar form. They’re printed in to a booklet, and feature a front cover, contents page and a variety of different articles/features.

How does my music magazine’s cover use, develop or challenge forms and conventions?

Clear masthead at the top of the page, it is not, however, in the ‘left-third’’, which would be the conventional position.

Headline attached to main image of front cover.

Main image of front cover, features a ‘cover star’. The main focus of the image is not in the middle third, challenging the convention.

Sub-titles

Other stories in the magazine Barcodes are a

convention of magazine front covers, as they allow the store worker to scan and sell the magazine.

QR Code, develops the conventions of the front cover. QR Codes aren’t widely used on front covers yet.

No ‘thumbnails’ – smaller sized images – as they could take the attention away from the main image. This challenges the convention, as magazines generally have thumbnail images near the border of the cover.

How does my music magazine’s contents page use, develop or challenge forms and conventions?

Introductory paragraph welcoming the readers to the magazine, and giving a brief summary of what to expect from this specific edition; this is a convention of magazines.

Page numbers anchored to the images relating to the two main stories in the magazine.

Images related to the two main stories of the magazine draw the attention of the readers toward them, and this is a convention of magazine contents pages.

Structure of the page differentiates from the norm, challenging the conventional use of columns as I instead opt for rows.

Contents broken down in to categories; categories are a convention of magazine contents pages, as they allow the user to quickly identify the specific group of articles they want to read.

Brief summary of the contents of each feature/story, allowing readers to get a quick overview, these are conventional of magazines.

Main image taking up on of the two pages of the double-page spread. With this, I’ve taken the conventional approach to laying out the page.

Pull quotes are a convention of magazine double page spreads that carry the purpose of catching the readers attention. I, however, have gone on to develop the convention by stylising the pull quote rather than leaving it plain.

Logo of the artist challenges the convention of titles for stories as it replaces it.

Introductory paragraphs are conventional features of double page spreads, as they help to give the reader some background information before diving in to in-depth questions.

The questions are in bold, which are a convention of magazines with the purpose of clearly identifying which part of the text is the question and which part is the answer.

Another pull quote – this one’s purpose, however, is to break up the text and make the body of text seem easier to read and less of a bore for the reader. The use of two pull quotes develops the convention, as generally, only one is used.