Question 1

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

My research

To start with I looked up and researched the Iconic connotations of a music magazine. I looked for different genres, how these genres attract there target audience, what genre of music was most popular and the different conventions there are within the different genres. After doing this I particularly liked the idea of the rock and indie magazines, and the connotations for these types of magazines are darks or the use of shades (black, white), the use of reds. I found that quite often on the front cover of a rock magazine there was a male artist rather then a female and I think this was because in the rock genre there are more male artists then there are women. I also found that the target audience for these magazine are usually the same both male and female.

My media product of a music magazine shows my development of how it

challenges and conforms to the forms of real music magazines, on my front cover, contents page and double page spread. When looking at a front cover of a music magazine for example NME you can see the conventions that rock magazines tend to follow and what I

tried to follow.

NMEThe red title of this rock magazine shows clear conventions of the magazine genre, this is one of the conventions I followed.

Here they have put an image that will be one from inside the magazine drawing the target audience in I found this very common in rock magazines and indie magazines as well, I also used an image like this on my front cover I even used more then one.

In nearly all of the rock magazines I looked at or in music magazines in general there was always a puff & plug advertising an event or a prize, I also used one.

The black background to the letters I found was very common in rock and indie magazines sometimes they can be white with black writing and in indie magazines sometimes even bright colors such as pinks and blues, I attempted to use this with out making it look blocky.

NMEMore use of reds on the front cove of the magazine following the codes and conventions.

Male artist on the front cover genre convention, I also used a male artist as I believed this to be true.

Eye contact with the audience/ reader, conventions of magazines, I included this with in the image I took for my magazine cover.

Quotes from articles within the magazines trying to draw the audience in, I did not include a quote on my front cover of my magazine.

My front coverFor my magazine I decided to chose rock and indie as I found out that within todays music, teens and young adults are into music that could be described as different.Here is my front cover. After doing most of my research on rock and indie magazines such as karreng, NME and Q I noticed common conventions that I have tried to follow, for example I could my magazine PIERCED as when listening to rock music the sound can be described as being quite piercing. I used the conventions of having the title in red but I did not use a bold, black out line like what can be seen through many rock magazines, because I decided to challenge the conventions of the rock magazine and have a black and white cover photo and if I decided to outline the title with black it would not look right in my opinion.

Q contents pageContinues to use the colours red onto the contents page, as in most magazine being continues through out is a key convention.

Includes feature of the next months magazine. Including this within magazines is very common just not on the contents page usually on the back ground.

Page numbers on the posters to indicate were they are going to be with in the magazine another key convention of music magazines.

Includes an image of the artist who will be on the double page spread article or will be in an article in general.

My contents pageHere is my contents page as you can see it continues the design and colours as the front cover using reds and blacks. I looked at different contents pages from different magazines to get an idea of what content would be in the magazine. I chose to have four pictures on my contents page the main one being of matt watts as the biggest picture on the page, as he is going to be the main part of this issue, and this follows the conventions of a music rock magazine. On the contents page I chose a different photograph to the front cover to show that I understand the codes and conventions of music magazines. At the bottom of the page I added a contest within my contents page, as it says on the front page in the puff and plug on competitions, so my contents links to the front cover.

Double page spread of a rock magazine

The artist of the magazine will have there eyes directed at the audience to pull them in also the use of the clothing the artist is wearing is red and this consists with the codes and conventions of a rock genre magazine.

The black outline to the quote at the top is a key convention to a rock magazine though they all are not designed like this others can just be a simple black outline.

The article itself is not very big at all its usually written in small writing to make it look smaller

My double page spread

My double page spread.

Here I have my double page spread, I have chosen to challenge the codes and conventions of music magazines as I have decided to have my artist not looking at the camera, meaning there is no

eye contact with the audience I did this because it makes him seem more mysterious. I also did this because I believe that matt

watts is a very famous person so why should he need to show his face when they will know who he is, I thought the same thing

about placing the image in front of the text stating his name because I believe they don’t need to see his whole name to

know who he is. I included pull quotes into my work to show that I understood the codes and conventions of a rock magazine

I also kept the colour scheme of using the reds and blacks the same as well as the fonts as this is also a convention of music

magazines.

To conclude.

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

To conclude my media product dose convey conventions of real media products such as the consistency of using the same

colours on the front cover, contents page and the double page spread. I also used different images of the same artist so it did not look repetitive and I also made sure the genre magazine I

chose, which was rock, conformed to the magazines that were already out there such as Karreng and so on. Although I did challenge some aspects to the genre I think my magazine

develops the conventions of a real media product as it should.