Media Evaluation 1

Media EvaluationIn what ways does your media product use, develop, and challenge the

codes and conventions of real media products?

Firstly let's start with the front cover. I feel as if my front cover does follow a lot of codes and conventions of magazines. The most vital feature of the front cover is the masthead which all magazines have, let alone just music magazines. The main front cover model image is also present, which a lot of magazines have, but there may be an anomaly out there somewhere. The image is a medium shot which is the type of shot which is usually used for the main front cover image for the majority of magazines out there, but my research has shown that there can be multiple main image models, but the more there are, the less of them is shown. There is also a cover line related to the main front cover model which is a convention in every magazine.Sometimes, depending on the type of magazine (music, gossip, fashion etc), there may be a splash or a picture boost. Originally I was thinking that I may be using one of these as I have included them in my front cover layout sketch. However, I have used a type of substitute to make up for the lack of picture boost in the final piece. As you can see in the bottom right corner, I have a smaller, full body shot of another model. This does actually follow some codes and conventions as there are a few music magazines that feature smaller sized models on the some corner or side of the cover, but usually acting as a picture boost or perhaps placed to act as filler,

but they're usually transparent (removed background) like the one on my front cover, so that the main background isn't interrupted and can keep the overall cover visually pleasing. I have also followed more codes and conventions such as including a skyline which exaggerates the magazine's reputation but skylines are not featured in every magazine. I also have more minor but still necessary features such as the magazine's price and the magazine's barcode, although usually the barcode is in the bottom right corner, but mine is in the bottom left.Overall, I think that my front cover hasn't really tried to challenge any codes and conventions of front covers and I feel that this is ironic since the ideologies about rock music is focused heavily on standing out in society, and I do not think that this magazines stands out overall compared to other magazines, but I am definitely pleased with the end result.

In comparison to these two magazine front covers, my magazine stands out very much because it is so different from these two. One of the things I immediately noticed is that the size of the cover lines and articles are much smaller on these magazines than they are on my front cover. I think I was too focused on trying to fill up as much space as possible on my front cover but even then, if we apply the rule of thirds, the bottom of my front cover still looks quite empty. My colours are also quite bland compared to these two magazines and really undermines the rock-element of my magazine, but I feel that I still managed to use colour sufficiently enough for my front cover to make it work, although there is a lot less red than there is on these two examples but I still used the colour red for my text just like the Mixmag magazine, and it also helped that red just so happened to be the only colour that stood out from the background colour of my front cover. Mixmag also does the same thing with having a darkly coloured model to blend in with the background. If I had the editing skills, I would have liked to the same thing and it could have actually made it easier to work with colours in the end.

Another difference between the my front cover and these two examples is that the front cover model/artist's name is

written in the middle of the cover. In the case of Kerrang, this was acceptable due to the unique front cover image and the shape of the image, which has significantly affected the rest of the cover's layout. Mixmag was able to get away with it due to the free CD they have attached to the front cover, which already takes up a large amount of the page and allows the designer to get away with having minimal contents in that corner.

This edition of Mixmag would be a much better magazine to make a comparison with as the layouts are quite similar, but there are noticeable differences. I've already mentioned about the rule of thirds and how I failed to take it into account which has left my front cover looking a bit empty, but then I would also have to defend myself at how the colours of my front cover are a lot more different and a lot harder to work with, which meant that it would be much harder to maximize the amount of space to fill up. One slight detail that my front cover manages to replicate with this edition of Mixmag is that they both use the same font throughout the entire cover. At first, I was slightly worried as other magazines used different fonts on their front covers, but Mixmag has put me to rest. Furthermore, it was still difficult to find any other nice fonts to work with other than 'Impact'.

Once again, the barcode of the actual real magazine is in the bottom right corner, but has an object acting as filler space in the left corner. This is also true for the previous two front covers looked at, where they had filled up the left corner with images or an actual physical object (CD). I inverted that convention in my front cover, where instead I had filled up the bottom right corner instead and had placed the barcode in the bottom left. One other convention that can be seen shared with these two magazines is the skyline being placed right at the top of the cover. Most magazines such as this edition of Mixmag have a single line skyline, but mine extended to two lines. I could have made the font smaller to fit it all into one line but there would still be a bigger gap between the skyline and masthead.

Next to evaluate is the contents page. I am feeling average about my contents page but I feel that it is underwhelming. Most contents pages don't usually feature a large number of different colours, which is why I tried to limit my contents page to only four colours. Thisexample supports my point as it features only uses the colours black, white, red, and yellow. Other colours are from images so I'm not going to count them, but this leads to my next point in that I think I didn't have enough imagery in my contents page. Originally I was going to include at least three images but since the image I decided to go with was so large, it significantly changed my initial layout. Looking at Kerrang's content page, they were able to fit large lists into their contents page but this could mostly due to the miniscule font. I would have liked to do the same thing but my font was already too small. Perhaps if I had wrote less text explanation for each feature, I could have fit more in the end, but my layout is significantly different from Kerrang's anyway. I did manage to create some similarities between the two contents pages though. The biggest and most noticeable similarity is the semicircle in the top right corners of the pages.

I really liked the semicircle so I decided to create one myself and I feel that it makes my contents page slightly visually pleasing. The second similarity which is also a convention as it has been used in other contents pages as well, is the colour rectangular backgrounds for the section titles (e.g. "features", "albums", "gig guide" etc). Since my paper was black (still also a convention used in some magazines), I had to invert the colours. The placement of the date and edition is different from Kerrang's, but I do not feel that it's challenging the convention as multiple magazines have done a similar thing regarding the placement of their date.

I would like to say that my contents page is closer to this one. The layout is somewhat similar in a way with the organised column of contents, but mine splits off onto the other half of the page. These two contents pages also only have one image on them but the difference between them is the size of the image. The image of Adam Lambert takes up the majority of the page, whereas my image only takes up a portion of the page. If I had gone for a different idea, I might have been able to recreate the image or do a full body shot of my model, but I'm still feeling alright with my contents page. Even if I could do the full shot, my semicircle would still be in the way.

On the right is a double page spread contents page. The reason I included it is because of the black background/white text combo being used to support my choices in colour scheme. This double page spread also uses even larger pictures than mine.Overall, I think my contents page has followed the codes and conventions but obviously s

Finally we're onto the double page spread. Overall I quite like my double page spread (DPS), but there is one major thing that I'm not happy about. The far left side of the DPS bothers me. I tried to follow the code and convention of mentioning the band's name on an article about them, in this case 'Son & Heir' for my made up band for the magazine. However, with my limited editing techniques and short amount of time, I panicked and tried to make the band name as visible as possible (sometimes less is better, especially in this case I believe) mostly to try and make it act as filler. Apart from that, I'm actually quite pleased with this. I followed the code and convention of using drop caps at the start of the text. I used columns for the text on the left page and bunched it all into one big paragraph on the right page, which I doubt is a code and convention. Usually, most DPSpreads would use either

columns or just bunch it all up everywhere, rather than using both. The main image is in black and white and bleeds goes extends onto both pages rather than just one. It's not a written rule that DPSpreads have to use images that extend onto both sides of the spread, but I wanted mine to do that. The image is also in black and white which I wouldn't say is a code and convention, but it is a technique I have seen in multiple magazines. However, the magazines I have seen this in are quite retro-based magazines which would explain their choice in colour. Even despite this, I do not feel that this is challenging any code and convention, but it would actually be more appropriate given the genre of music the magazine "specialises" in, which is rock. This means that colours such as black and grey go well here, and I've used those colours to an immediately noticeable extent.

These two DPS were my inspiration for my own DPS. I feel that I have somewhat managed to imitate their layouts but I have made some unnecessary changes and have not made some necessary changes. For example, the far left side bar on my double page spread is unnecessary, but I kept it to act as filler. I know if I removed it, I would just have a large empty gap that I would not be able to fill up with content. On the far right of the second picture is a large section which is what I tried to replicate in my DPS. Although, the colour in the real magazines is black and has a pattern on it, whilst mine is just plain grey with differently coloured text. 7The Kerrang magazine on the left actually has a picture collage on their main image, and I would have liked to do something like that but I didn't have enough models or enough time for it.

Overall, I feel that my magazine has tried to stick to codes and conventions of music magazines, but in the end might have challenged them to an extent. The biggest thing that sticks out for me the most in my magazines is the difference in item placement (placement of images, text etc).