Q1. In what ways does your media

product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real

media products?

When designing my music magazine, I chose to stay to conventions and forms of real music magazines rather than challenge them. I felt there are reasons for these rules sticking to them would make my magazine

look more professional as the audience can compare it to a real magazine. I do believe that I used and developed the conventions

effectively.

So my music product links to genre of Hip Hop and the name of my magazine is RAW, a slang term that hip hop industry and youth

community uses as an adjective describing something completely hard core and awesome, anything truly amazing and cool.

As you seen most all of magazine that been published and people have seen or have brought have a common convention is having the

masthead at the top of the magazine. My masthead is in the top left corner relation with XXL masthead. Here I used the colour of white, capital letters with a red background that associates with the genre. At this point, I have followed the convention block colours from the

masthead.

On my front cover I have keep on to several conventions......

Front Cover

A common convention of hip hop magazine is that the cover artist is arranged central of the title and is positioned behind the artist, here my cover artist is covering half of the ‘w’ and to a scale difficult to understanding the name. I chose this as it shows the dominance of the artist which has a direct mode of address as the artist looks straight into the camera which creates the effect that the artist is looking directly towards as the audience. This is common in music magazine as the publisher of the magazine wants you to build an instant connection with the reader in order to help appeal to the audience to interest them into buying it. This can be seen on a few front covers but not all. Although my main image is strongly developed representation of the conventions usually found on a typical music magazine of the hip hop genre.

The image was taken as mid shot in order to create an approachable image. My cover artist is also a male and therefore using the conventions. Here I used conventions around my props I used, from the artist body position and facial expression. Here he has on a black tee and with a crown and a chain. Here I used links of hip hop industry fashion and style is connoted. The chain and crown represents sign of power, richness, wealth and authority. He is not smiling which is expected of rappers who like to be seen to be tough.

Also the headlines surrounding the artist on both sides to segregate the artist from the rest of the magazine. I used the ‘Modern’ Font for the title ‘Major’ on the front page. I have stuck to key conventions as the title, being bold and large, since it is the biggest font on the page.

My magazine would attract a masculine audience - the desired preference of a hip-hop magazine since its evidence for this is the masculine fonts used throughout my magazine.

The position and structure of the text also pertains to the key conventions; but not in random places such as the texts on the right hand side of the artist has all artist featured in the magazine is positioned around the outside, giving the

magazine an organized format.

The bar code is a key convention for any magazine. I challenge conventions of most titles, appearing much more modernized and complementing towards the style. The bar code is located on the bottom left corner of the magazine; this is typical feature of a music magazine front cover as seen in magazine.

The overall layout of my contents page is shown to spark consistency and is kept in a

particular style so that it is easily recognizable as a Hip Hop magazine without

looking at the front cover.

Contents Page

This can be noticed by the text and colour of my cover lines. I have decided to follow conventions used by many similar successful media products such as the colour; red, white and black are all found on the contents. I have also developed my cover lines so that categories have been introduced.

This is a typical feature found in both Hip Hop and mixed genre magazines, and is used to separate articles and information within magazine content, providing numbers to aid navigation. I feel this organizes headlines efficiently as it would be easier for a reader to find a particular headline they are searching for. Additionally, it suits the hip hop for my magazine, therefore looking more appealing. The use of these categories also means that dividers are unnecessary.

Regarding columns in my contents page, I have challenged conventions found in other media products as instead of multiple columns; I will have only two column, as I plan to have two pages of contents. Doing so allows me to fill dead space with images which may look attractive to readers and not repel them by an overflow of text in one page.

The images used are kept settled to the right and also the left, giving another unconventional approach to my magazine. I believe that the images being placed in this particular way is more effective as it shows an organized style and cannot look messy as they are not scattered throughout, instead being carefully placed.

Furthermore my artist is seen on both of my contents, and double page spread. These two props highlight my use of key conventions. My cover artist is wearing a hood jacket; emphasize the negative stereotype often associated with criminals. Other of my artists is incorporated with same stereotypical. On my contents page my female artist is standing on a white background and other one leaning down on the floor beside a brick wall this also used in the content page of XXL. Having the girls and jewellery with the artists certainly portray the conventions of wealth, displayed throughout any hip-hop magazine. I think it was good to include a female artist seeing as it's a hip-hop magazine, rappers are always pictured with women; it's a common convention for a hip-hop magazine to have a section dedicated to female models.

Another aspect of my magazine that challenges forms and conventions of Hip Hop contents pages are my bright, bold page numbers that are equally as visible as any other text visible. They are placed in a bold white letters directly next to the headlines, and fit well considering that my magazine is targeted towards a younger audience.

The contents page follows the conventional use of subheadings to introduce my stories, followed by a description of what the features will include. This feature has been used in the magazines I’ve analysed and it has helped to structure my stories in a neat and in order by using the page numbers besides the stories. I’ve also used the traditional column structure to portray my stories in a neat and simplistic way. This has also been used in the content pages of the XXL, The source and mix mag magazines I analysed and therefore I’m following the conventional use of more than one main image on the contents page.

However I’ve also used made a original images I made myself to make a album covers for one of my stories for of ‘YOUR FREE CD’. This is developing conventions, as the images of album covers are not usually placed on the contents page, even if they are in relation to any of the stories. They are usually found towards the end of the magazine and the albums covers magazines are going to review are not revealed on the contents page. Therefore I’ve developed this convention and I did this because it is a way of gaining the readers interest, by already revealing the album name and getting free things they are likely to be keen on finding out whether that particular album got a positive or negative review.

The footer of my magazine includes the logo of my magazine and ‘RAW’, which is the colour of white, capital with a red box as the background, placed on the right hand side top of the page. Along with this on the right hand side of the bottom of the page the credit of the photographer and stylist, this took the image and dressed the artist, used on the page. These features of the footer are all conventional and therefore I’ve followed them.

My double page spread contains many conventions found strictly in magazines of

the Hip Hop genre. But it slightly less conventional in terms of the layout and more

specific to the themes and message being conveyed throughout this specific article I thought this certain layout would be more appealing and would be more fitting to the

theme being portrayed.

Double Page Spread

However despite this, throughout the magazine I kept to the typical codes and conventions of a music magazine as the target audience for my magazine is quite typical so as well as appealing to my target audience specifically in places I wanted to produce something that would be something conventional. The overall layout of this feature was inspired by well-established products such as Mix Mag magazine. They share some conventions such as the main image covering the whole of the page which gives an effect that attract the readers by appearing attractive, and also at the same time informational as the text is on front of the image makes it look like there is more body text than there actually is.

I have chosen to develop an unconventional stand first, this time I don't use the colour scheme that much which wraps around the headline to merge the all white to maintain my strong style and enhance the effect of white . The fonts used for this is the same font that has been used for cover lines and headlines on both my front cover on contents page. As I have developed this rather than using the same font for body text it signifies the importance of this stand first. This is also highlighted by the clash with the headline to suggest it is of equal importance, which is why I believe this unconventional approach is effective for my magazine.

The mise en scene of the main image is revealed to be very subtle and relaxed, putting a main focus on the artist and not the background, although the top of some buildings can be noticed. This could foreshadow the information in the article as it talks about major being on top of the music industry. This image is covered on the top right by a quote which I have chosen to follow as a convention used by some Hip Hop magazines that use a similar style. The quote adds an enigmatic feel to the double page spread, as well as making it alluring to the reader. Here Major is leaning on graffiti wall, with a hat on and chains. A very aggressive impression is created and the shadow created around his head and the graffiti, could represent the scene of criminal such as selling drugs or violence of some sort. There is also a common thing between rappers about wealth.

I’ve used columns to structure my article, which is conventional and is feature I used to create a recognizable and simple layout for the reader. The article on my double page spread is a biography of the artist, which is definitely following the conventions as this is used frequently in many magazines and is recognizable and familiar feature. I’ve also added the artist’s name besides my texts on the right hand side, which is following the conventions once again. The footer of my magazine follows very similarly to the footer of my contents page as it includes the name of my magazine.