Evaluation 1: In what way does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Title of the magazine

This is the masthead for my magazine. It conforms to the audience’s expectations of a music magazine .It has a generic title that it’s placed in the left hand corner similar to magazines that I researched such as ‘NME’ and ‘Q’. This makes the magazine title easy to see, this is crucial for a new magazine as the name and house style needs to be established so it is easily recognised. However unlike most magazines the title of my magazine is two words instead of just one word. I decided to go against this convention to make my magazine different and to make it stand out compared to others similar to it. When creating the masthead I had to consider the colour I was going to make the masthead as I need it to stand out yet to be easy to read. I decided to use the colour scheme red black and white. I decided to use these colours as they contrast with each other and apply to the indie rock genre. Through my research into conventions of music magazines I noticed that most indie rock music magazines have the colour scheme of red, black and white and if the target audience were to see my magazine with these colours they would straight away recognise my magazine as an indie rock magazine. As you may have noticed my masthead is not covered up by my front cover image this is too one again establish the magazine name.

Mise-en-scene of images

Images are an important part of my magazine as it is one of the main things that will attract my target audience to my magazine. As if my music magazine has an image of an artist that appeals to my target audience they will be more likely to buy the magazine and until my magazine is established images are crucial for attracting my target audience. It was important that I got the main image right as if it didn’t reach the target audiences expectations of an indie rock magazine then it would be unlikely that many people would by the magazine. My model for my front cover represents the indie rock genre and the type of people who would buy and read my magazine. I think my model portrayed the genre and style of my magazine and what people would expect; my model is wearing a denim jacket and a buttoned up shirt these clothes represent the indie rock genre and relate to the clothes that my target audience may wear. The pose does challenge the typical conventions of music magazines as my model is looking slightly away from the camera and doesn’t make direct eye contact with the reader; however I wanted the magazine to have something that differentiates it from other magazines. I like the brightness of my image even though it does not really apply to the expectations of an indie rock magazine as it is expected that the image would be quite dark, however I think my image is still effective as it does still apply to the conventions of an indie rock magazine. The lighting in my magazine is all natural light, I did not have to adjust the lighting of the image much however I did make the image slightly darker so it looks sharper. The model's skin look bright and emphasized because of the lighting and I have noticed this as a common convention on other magazines. The image background is simple so that the other text on the magazine is clear to see and so the page does not look cluttered.

Costumes and props

I chose this photo to write about as I think it represents the use and costume the best out of all my images. This image is placed on my contents page. The first thing you notice in the image is the guitar prop. I decided to use a guitar as a prop as I think it furthers the representation of the indie rock genre as most of the artists in the indie rock genre use guitars in their songs. Also I think it reaches out to the target audience also as many of them may play the guitar. The idea of my model wearing a fur coat goes against the conventions of the indie rock genre however it could be argued that being an individual and having your own individual style is an important part of the indie rock genre so that any type of clothing fits in to the conventions of indie rock. Also the colourful hair goes against the conventions of indie rock as it is seen as a stereotypical member of the indie rock target audience would have dark hair however going back to the idea of being an individual and type of hair style could be a convention of indie rock.

People

I have decided to use my front cover to represent people in my magazine. This is because I feel like my front cover has the most varied view of people, so therefore is a good talking point. I feel like the people used in my magazine represent my target audience well as all the people I have used are aged between 16-20 therefore I feel that my audience will relate to the magazine more because of this as the models they see are similar too themselves and therefore may be more attracted to the magazine.

Title font and style

The title font and style of my magazine is quite simple however fits into the conventions of a magazine. This is because the title is simple, bold and the idea of using sans-serif furthers the conventions of a music magazine. I think that it is important to create a title that fits in with the conventions of a music magazine as my audience will be able to notice the magazine easily. The use of the colour red once again fits in with the conventions of a music magazine. When I researched the conventions of magazines earlier in the project I noticed that most indie-rock magazines used the colours red, white and black and therefore I decided to use these colours as I knew they would reach out to my target audience. I took some time when deciding what font I wanted to use. I needed to choose a font that was easy to read but fitted into the magazine. I was going to use the font Calibri however I decided that this did not look professional enough to be used in my magazine so I decided to change the font to use the font Cambria as I felt that it looked more professional and that it fitted into the magazine more.

Written content

The written part of my magazine was a large part that I needed to get right as it needed to attract my target audience well so they would buy the magazine and read the article. The article needed to appeal to them; it wasn’t just the article that needed to appeal to the audience but the written parts on the contents page that were important as under each heading there is a brief description of the page that will hopefully make the audience want to turn to the page and read the page. I also noticed throughout my research that other magazines also did this and I wanted to relate to the conventions of magazines. Another important part of contents page I needed to get right were the headings that tell the reader what the pages are. I needed the headings to be clear and easy to read, also that the pages were easy to navigate to. The double page spread was easy to write as I knew what to write as I am a part of my target audience (16-20) so I knew what I needed to write that would appeal to my target audience.

Music genre

I feel that the genre of my magazine (indie rock) is suggested in a variety of ways throughout my magazine. Firstly the use of costume and props play a large part as the use of props such as the guitar help to suggest that the indie rock genre uses guitars to create there music. Also the use of individualistic clothing helps to add to the genre as a large part of the indie rock genre is to be an individual and by giving each model a individual style it helps to convey the idea of indie rock. Colour is important also, because I think the combination of black, white and red perfectly exposes the genre. I found out that red black and white were the tree most popular colours when carting out research about the conventions of magazine and noticed that similar magazines such as ‘Q’ and ‘NME’ use this colour scheme. I think the genre is put across well by the use of these colours because of there strength and connotation.

Layout

When considering the layout for my magazine pages I had to consider several aspects to make sure that my pages were clear, understandable and did not look too over crowded with information. When designing the layout of my front cover I decided to go with the convention of having the masthead slightly to the left even though the masthead covers most of the width of the page. I did this because it goes with the conventions of magazines but also because it is clear to read and notice this way also. Also by doing this I feel that it balances out the attention between the masthead and the main image because neither of them over lap in a way that looks messy or in a way that either the masthead or main image take the attention away from each other. By using the rule of thirds when taking the front cover image it allowed me to create a front cover image that would allow me to place a masthead, cover story, insert images and other text around the image with out making the page look to over crowded but instead gave the magazine a look that shows it has a variation of things inside to attract the audience.

Contents page

I think my contents page conforms to the conventions of a music magazine as it follows the rule of using 3 columns and such like. I decided to follow the conventions because I felt by doing so it would make it easy for my readers to find what they needed to easily. I once again followed the conventions by using the word ‘contents’ as my title to reach my target audiences expectations of a magazine. By using the a large image this suggests that this is a main article that is important to the magazine. By doing this it may encourage the audience to buy my magazine because they want to read the main article. As this image takes up two columns out of the three it proves its significance to the reader and once again highlights its importance. I have again followed the conventions of a contents page by including an editor’s letter. I feel like this is an important part of the page as it makes the magazine feel more personal to the reader as the letter is directed to them, also it allows the reader to connect more closely to the magazine as they know who the editor is. Also by adding an image of the editor it once again makes the magazine feel that little bit more personal. The use of numbers that anchor the written text beside them draw attention to each number making the reader want to turn to all the pages and it also makes the magazine easy to navigate. The use of small pieces of information to compliment the numbers and titles allows the reader to find out a little bit more about the page before turning to it.