Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Poppy B-B AS Media

Cover

Conventions of my music magazine: ‘Indie’

• The artist has eye-contact with the reader making them more likely to buy the magazine due to it feeling more personalised to each reader.

The artist is the center of the cover making it the main image and background of the page. The image is bold and eye-catching with a clear background, creating the main focus of the page. The image also links to the headline, showing the featured artist (Sanah El-Gadi). This enables the reader to associate the image of the artist with the headline getting an immediate idea of what the featured article may be about.

The masthead occupies the top section of the cover, using a bold colour and font to stand out within the page. I have arranged for the masthead to be behind the artists head, so that she is the main focus of the page.

Masthead

• The masthead is at the top of the page , therefore making it more visible for the readers and creating an obvious brand name that can be easily recognised by my target audience.

• I decided to use a different font for the masthead as it would be unique to the rest of the magazine thus reinforcing the idea of a brand.

• The masthead is larger than the rest of the font within the magazine making it easy for the reader to see and recognise within the page.

• I decided to use a bold colour (blue), as it would stand out against the other colours used in the house-style of the magazine such as the oranges and white.

Masthead

• I used the magazine ‘Rolling Stone’ for inspiration for my masthead as it used a similar theme to my magazine.

• To begin with, my masthead was bland and blended in with the background of the cover, to improve this I used a similar font to ‘Rolling Stone’ to make it stand-out against and appeal to my target audience.

Coverlines• I put the coverlines to the right-hand side of the page,

making them easily visible next to the main image. I used bold colours and text for the coverlines to make them easily visible to the reader and also to make them stand-out and become eye-catching therefore making the viewer want to read on.

• I decided to use bold lines between each story, to separate the text and make the page appear organised and clear.

• I used Rolling Stone magazine as inspiration for my cover-lines, adapting the idea of lines between the separate stories and the differences in font size between the main feature and the smaller detail beneath it. I also modified the idea of putting the cover-lines to the right-hand side of the page.

• I decided to feature a smaller amount of cover-lines as I believed this would look more effective on the cover and less crowded.

Headline

• The headline features the name of the artist mentioned – in this case Sanah El-Gadi.

• I decided to use a bold and unique font to the rest of the cover, to make the headline stand-out within the page. In addition to this, the use of a bold colour and font would catch the readers eye which is what I was trying to achieve.

• I chose unusual fonts for my headline and detail as the ‘Indie’ genre itself is quite unusual therefore it would attract my target audience more and fit the genre I was trying to create.

Detail

• I decided to use language that would appeal to my target audience and entice them to buy the magazine to read the story.

• ‘Bad Girl’ may make the audience buy the magazine due to them wanting to find out why she was the ‘indie scene’s newest ‘bad girl’’.

• I used a separate font for the detail beneath the headline, to show diversity within the page and to follow the genre of my magazine.

Selling Line

• My selling line is small and beneath the masthead, making it easily visible to the reader without being too bold.

• It uses positive language to entice the reader to buy the magazine.• I decided to overlap the main image and selling line to make the

conventions of the cover link together while improving the aesthetics of the cover.

Contents

Features• For my contents page I used 2 separate columns, thus

making the page more organised and clear for the readers.

• I decided to put my columns on separate sides of the page to incorporate my image and to keep the page interesting for the reader.

• I used lines to separate the stories and page numbers to make it clearer for the user.

• I used a different colour for my headings and detail to again make the page clear and to give the page more colour instead of it being monochrome.

Photos

Page Title

• I decided to use the same colour for the title as my cover therefore creating consistency and a house style.

• The bright colour is appealing and adds more colour to my magazine, I decided to use a pastel blue as it features in magazines similar to my own such as rolling stone.

• I decided to use the same font to reinforce the idea of a house style and to have some variety in fonts.

Article

Main Image

• For my main image I decided to use a photo that would have an impact on the reader which also related to the article.

• I decided this image strongly linked to the indie genre due to the tie-dye shirt.

• To edit the photo I decided to keep the ti-dye in colour and to adjust the vibrancy to make it stand-out within the page, while turning the background to black and white.

• I decided to make the image a side of A4 as I wanted it to be eye-catching and interesting.

Quotes

• I decided to only feature one quote that I believed would be enticing for the audience.

• My quote features a part of the article that features another famous artist – Ellie Goulding.

• The familiarity in the artist would make the audience more likely to read the article and buy the magazine.

• I put my quote over my main image as that would be the part of the page that the audience would be more likely to look at first.

The article

• For my article I again decided to use 2 columns and only used 7 Q&A’s.

• I used a standard font therefore making it easier for the audience to read the article similar to magazines from my research.

• I decided to put the questions in italic making them clearer and bolder for the audience to read and understand the separation.

• I decided to put a silhouette of the artist behind the article to improve the aesthetics of the page and make it appear more professional.

Article title

• For my article title I used a similar blue to that of the contents and cover, however I used a different font to make the article separate from the house style of the magazine.

• I used an unusual but legible font making the article appear more exciting. • I underlined the title to make it stand out from the background, the lines also

link to the contents page thus making a link between the article and the rest of my magazine.

Forms

• The colour scheme of my magazine Is black, white, orange and blue. I used black and white to make my magazine look more professional and to fit with my theme of alternative.

• I have used images taken by myself, while not being able to use videos and sound due to the magazine being a paper publication.

• I considered a variety of different fonts choosing the best suited fonts to my magazine and genre. These were generally eye-catching and bold to entice the reader.

Challenging conventions

• The only convention that I have decided not to include within the magazine is the editors letter. I decided not to include this as my genre is not mainstream such as pop and dance, therefore it typically does not follow all of the conventions.

• Other magazines similar to my own also do not include an editors letter such as ‘Q’. This was the magazine I used for inspiration therefore I decided to copy the way they challenged conventions due to it being successful.