Evaluation Question One

In what ways does your media product use, develop

or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

Jermaine Miller

Masthead – This instantly shows the reader the name of my magazine and being bold and in bright yellow it’d be hard to miss, this is a common convention to identify the product giving it its own recognition. I minimized the character spacing to give it more of a boldness and unique style.

Date/Issue/Website – this convention is also needed on most magazines and on this product I made it very blunt and straight forward showing that there is no relevance for it towards my main target of the magazine genre and that it is quick to read and understand still standing out with the bright yellow in the red text box with a black border. It also isn’t very formal; “10JAN12”

Coverlines – There are different font sizes, colours and styles to differentiate the importance of each different coverline relating to the main genre. “20 Dope HipHop Hits” tells the reader the main genre of the magazine straight away and the language is straight forward.

Flasher – This is a common convention on most magazines, mainly found on NME covers. The text stands out from the house style of the magazine which is expected because Flashers are meant to stand out.

Main Coverline – common convention used to give the reader a taste of the outline of whats in the magazine. The importance of this is shown in the font colour matching the masthead and being the big and bold. “WE ARE” is bold bigger than the other text of the main coverline because I’m trying to show the direct language involving the audience.

Striking Image – The person in this image is representing the hip hop genre wearing stereotypical clothing & accessories such as a wide black jacket, silver chain and a beanie. He’s face expression is showing that hip hop has a serious side to it. This is a common convention also to tell the reader who the target audience is and how they are represented. The red hat goes with the housestyle also to help it suit my magazine.

SIMILARITIES

Background – White – this is to help enhance all conventions to stand out to the reader and the coloured clothing being worn.

Banner – A common convention used to add any extra advertisements in the magazine.

Barcode - convention used on every magazine to scan the price of the magazine which is why I haven’t included it on my front cover.

DIFFERENCESWhat conventions have I challenged?

One of the conventions I have challenged is the rule of thirds which isn’t quite clear as a lot of the layers go over 2 rules such as a coverline text box and the date/issue/website. This shows that my magazine is developing a different structure in not looking common or basic.

In my research I had stated that I would have a brick wall as my background, cropping the person out of another image sticking him on there, that didn’t go to plan as the lighting was hard to control to keep professionalism; making the person look like they were really in that image.

SIMILARITIESContents Title – This tells the reader that they are reading the contents page, it is bluntly shown by being the biggest size font on the page, it is also white in a black text box which makes it stand out a lot more. This is also a common convention on all contents pages of magazines

Date – The date is shown & structured in the same way as on the front cover still showing how it is straight forward but still should be noticed being in a bold yellow font.

Image – The image tells the reader what the main story will be based on. This also relates to the hip-hop genre within the clothing being worn: Converse, hoody and black beanie. The action being portrayed also may show the background of hip-hop that it was originated from the streets and has some negative past.

Main story – The main story/article is common convention and always has a brief paragraph as an introduction to it. The title it also in a black text box connoting that its an important story and will attract the audience to go straight to that page.

Footer – Common convention used to add a little advertisement which is inside the magazine giving the page number and even though its on the very bottom of the page it still must stand out which is why I have put the black text in a yellow text box enhancing the text. “PLUS” is in capital letters with an exclamation mark to enhance that there is a lot more interesting things in the magazine.

Subscribe box – Most magazines feature this convention to get the audience to subscribe to the news they give out and to boost customer sales. This gives the magazine recognition and makes it look popular. This also relates to the hip-hop urban genre using language such as “DOPE”. The “NOW” is enhanced to be noticed by being bigger than the word “Subscribe”, this makes the reader see that word first and think, ‘do what now?’

Masthead – I used the same masthead from my front cover which is a common convention used to remind the reader what magazine they are reading.

Sub headings – A common convention used which I got from NME magazine used to tell the reader what part of the magazine they will be looking at as it is being show on top of the index column.

Index/Article Stories and page numbers – These are all shown in the right third and is shown like this as a common convention to keep them grouped together so the reader can see straight away what they’ll be reading and what page. I have highlighted all important relevant words in black to let the reader know what they are going to be mainly reading

DIFFERENCES

What conventions have I challenged?

One of the conventions I challenged was the image, The finger sign that the person is pulling may not be advertised in most magazines which is why I put a blur effect on it but you can still see that the sign is bad from this, but this develops the meaning behind this that the background of hip hop that it wasn’t all positive and influenced the youth majorly. Another thing challenged in this image is the shoes that the person is wearing, they were originated from the hip hop urban style but nowadays are portrayed as indie/rock.

I have also challenged the convention that says “This Week?” in most magazines it’ll have an exclamation mark after it but this has a question mark because it builds a sort of suspense of what's to come in the magazine.

“No.1” is usually shown when there is a playlist underneath it, I have used this to state that it is issue number one by having it right under the contents title in the same colour font. This will develop to be more clear when more and more issues will have each number going in ascending order.

Image: Page 1 – Black & white effect to show that the hip hop genre has a huge history/past behind it. A medium below shot to show the face expressions and the dominance of the music artists. They’re also close together, the same race and share similar dress senses to show that they may be a hip hop group.

Pull Quote – A common convention used to show what the person(s) who the article about has said which may portray their motto. Being in big bold font this shows the importance of it and that the article will be based around that.

Text on 1st page – Starts with a drop cap which is a main convention for music magazines to attract the reader. Rule of Thirds layout, each third has a different heading portraying different stages in brief of ‘Urban Youths’ career and they are bigger and bolder than article story and highlighted in red to draw the reader.

Footer contains page numbers, magazine title and website. All straight forward information. The page numbers must be noticed first as they are a different colour to everything else on the footer line

Question/Answer text – The questions are in bold italic and the answers are in normal form, this shows that the questions must be read by the reader first. And to entice the reader Rule of thirds layout used.

By-line – Placed in the middle to break up the text and attract the readers attention being highlighted in a red text box. The importance of it is highlighted also being in a very stylish font.

Tag – showing who the article is about

Boarder placed around 2nd image, also tilted to challenge the conventional rule of thirds but also to give great style

Headline – huge and bold with a black border around each word to entice the reader. Follows the colour scheme. It draws the reader as it doesn’t tell them directly what its about

“News” on the side of 2nd page tells the reader what section there reading. Being in a black text box, its noticeable