Evaluation question one

Evaluation

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

Through research, I discovered a number of traditional conventions of magazines, that become typical upon each magazine I looked at. Conventions such as:

- Bold magazine titles- Use of three or less, main colours- Date/issue number- Sell lines- Variety of font and colours sizes

As you can see through this comparison, both magazines have bold titles in which display the name of the each magazine.

The style of font used for the title, tends to typically reflect the genre of the magazine, for example, in relation to music, the style of font, usually reflects the genre of music that magazine focuses on. For example ‘Vibe’ is printed in very ‘blunt’ ‘edgy’ ‘firm’ lettering, which is supporting the ‘hip hop’ genre of music and ‘Blender’ is a much less harsher style, much more curved lettering but still very ‘statement’ which reflects the indie genre of music.

The colour of the masthead, will either be consistent every issue of the magazine, or will be changed each week to suit the other chosen colours of the cover. For example ‘Vibe’ has chosen yellow, which supports other text on the cover and ‘blender has chosen blue which also supports other text on the cover. However the colour will always be bold, causing it stand out and become appealing to the eye.

The writing in printed in a large font, bigger than any other text on the cover, in which causes it to stand out above all the other text and make it clear to the reader what

magazine it is.

Each magazine will always have a choice of colours to display the text. This typically tends to be around three, but can differ from each magazine; typically this is no more than three though.

The use of a number of main colours, is usually used throughout the magazine also and creates continuity. If you were to cut a magazine up and mix it amongst other cut up magazines, it should be possible to tell what pages belong to what magazine, by the continuity of the pages, and one aspect of this continuity is the colours.

Each magazine will always have the issue number or release date of that magazine.

This tends to always be printed in very small font as it is not highly important to the majority of readers.

All magazines, will always have a variety of sell lines upon the cover.

They will positioned around the main image of the magazine and sometimes supported by other smaller images, that relate to the sell line

The sell lines will consist of a variety of articles that will be places on the cover to show the reader what is insider, and hopefully ultimately appeal to them, and therefore purchasing the

magazine.

The sell lines are printed in a variety of colours, this causes particular words of the text to stand out above the rest.

The use of colour on particular words can cause them to stand out on the page, attract and appeal to readers

As well as colours, changes of sizes of fonts can also make particular words or phrases stand out on the page and attract and appeal to readers.

For my masthead, I chose the name ‘Bright Lights’ I printed this in bold and in a much larger font than all the other pieces of text on the page to reflect what is typically done by existing magazines. It causes it to stand out above everything else of the page, make it clear to the reader what the magazine is and finally causes it to appear much more appealing.

I have also printed on to the cover, the date and issue number of the magazine. I have printed this in a small font, another typical convention that is typically found on a magazine.

I have included a number of sell lines on to the cover also. I chose to write things that would appeal to readers. I also created this appeal through a variety of font sizes and colours.

I also chose to use two main colours; black and purple. The colours help to make the overall page look more appealing, make different pieces of text stand out and also creates continuity.

Here, I feel I have captured the use of masthead’s that are bold and in a largely sized font. I feel my masthead stands out above all the remaining text on the page and makes it clear to the reader what the name of the magazine is.

I feel I have captured the use of sell lines well also. The amount of sell lines differs from magazine to magazine, however the purpose of them and the use of different font styles and sizes I do feel I captured well.

I feel I have captured the use of displaying the main feature of the particular issue of the magazine, through the layout of the text about the artist being positioned right next to the main image.

We have black and white screens in which to photo in front of, and a variety of lights in which to create different effects of lighting.

I felt this was a brilliant way to capture the ‘studio feel’ that comes from a large number of music magazines. The main images, always tend to be on one background of block colour and have been edited in some way.

This is an image from our collage website. It displays the creative studio. This is where I performed my photo shoot.

www.cabot.ac.uk

The creative studio has a variety of tools that were extremely beneficial to what I was trying to achieve.

I booked a session in the centre; a session in which I had also arranged with my model, so that we could both be there at the same time and perform the photo shoot.