Evaluation question one

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

My magazineI based my product on other well-known magazines. Throughout the production of my magazine I kept looking at Q products because they are a well-established magazine company. I made sure to look at Q for my front cover, contents and double page spread in order to keep the same house feel. I used a similar layout to Q which is almost the same for all popular music magazines. Also after researching contents pages I learned that the majority of them use one large image and a few smaller ones. I found that double page spreads usually have a whole page for a picture and another page for text which usually has information about a band or an interview.

Conventional structures of magazines

Masthead

MastheadCover lines

Cover lines

Main picture

Main pictureCover lines

Cover lines

My front cover is has a similar layout to conventional magazines. The structure of my magazine cover shows a bold masthead that stands out clearly, it also has a large high quality image surrounded by text which is similar to a lot of well known magazines including this NME one.

Front cover inspirationI based my media product on a Q magazine, the front cover is from a 2011 issue which was for their 25th anniversary. The issue focused on the Artic Monkeys which is a very well-known band. I decided to use a Q magazine for my inspiration because I felt the style would appeal to my target audience. My first magazine cover had a similar looking boy band but I didn’t think the image was good enough quality so I changed it. Q also had a list of artists on the right hand side of the cover, I also used this idea because I thought it would encourage anyone interested in those artists to buy the magazine.

Contents pageMy contents page Research materialI also used Q to inspire my contents page in order to

keep the same style throughout my magazine. I have used similar colours and fonts so it all ties together. Q uses a similar layout in all their magazines, they tend to use one large picture and a one or two smaller images. Q also divides their contents page up using thin and subtle lines. I researched other music magazines such as NME and KERRANG. I found that they used a similar style, they also use a large picture and they have also used columns to write about what’s in the magazine.

Double page spreadMy double page spread

Research material

For my media product I researched other conventional double page spreads. I used a large good quality image that took up a whole A4 page and then used the rest of my double page spread for text. I used a quote from my interview and put it in a larger font in order to attract my audience.

I researched Q double page spreads in order to keep the same style throughout my magazine. I also researched other magazine double page spreads such as NME because I liked the layout.