Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To have a brief idea on what my music magazine should look like, I analysed a past music magazine made by ‘VIBE’ This helped me to understand the concept on what a music magazine targets to their audience and what specific stuff it should have. My music magazine challenges the convections on what an ordinary music magazine should look like specifically for the genre I done (rap/hip-hop). Most rap/hip-hop magazines have a picture of a model in a plain background to engage the audience to the main starring artist, but in my magazine the picture of my model is taken in a natural setting outside, by doing this the audience can relate to the artist’s life with their own lives. However my magazine also follows some of the convections used in a music magazine, for example; the masthead of my magazine which I downloaded from a website called ‘dafont.com’ is the most stand out piece of writing there as the size of the font is 140. Also the masthead is placed behind the model’s head. This was hard to accomplish as because my background was a natural setting, I had to cut out the head and make it in front of the masthead, by doing this, it makes the magazine looks more professional and stylish. The font used is san sarif as the letters is separated; I decided to use a san sarif font to suit the genre of my magazine.  The following is a comparison of the magazine I analysed and you could see the conventions of the masthead behind Model:

Under my masthead there are 2 sub-lines. One of which is a selling line. A selling line is one of the most common conventions used in music magazines. By using a selling line it not only promotes the magazine but also attracts the audience’s attention. For example in my music magazine the selling line is “Exclusive to UK” This gives the impression to the audience that the magazine will have unique information only in their own homeland. I also used a issue number under my masthead. This will tell the audience that we are not a amateur magazine and have made pervious magazines before.

One of the most obvious conventions that probably 99% of all music magazines have is having a barcode. Most magazine barcodes are placed in the bottom right corner of the pager as I did. I also added the price of the magazine with the barcode as this is another convention that I followed. Using a barcode gives a sense of professionalism.

Another common convention that I followed was inserting the website of the company that made the music magazine. A lot of magazines follow this convention as yet again, it shows a sense of professionalism, it  will also attract the audience as if they are interested by the work put in by the magazine then they will know where to go to get further information. Most websites are placed either at the bottom of the page or on top of the page.

Also another convention that I followed was other artist’s names. Usually a lot of magazines have a line of other artists (usually in the same genre) this is generally placed above the main masthead. I decided to use this as it will attract fans of those artists named, so for example if a customer looks at this magazine and is not interested in the main artist, they will see the name of a artist they like e.g. Eminem and then want to purchase the magazine, this will also attract unplanned audiences.

My magazine has many different cover lines. Without cover lines, there is no grammatical way to engage the audiences attention.  This is another convention that is used in music magazines. By using cover lines it gives a hint on what stories are inside the actual magazine.  My cover lines are not only colourful and bright, engages the eyes of the audience, but also the title of each cover line will attract people on its own as it has the names and stories of some big name stars. The font used is consistent all the way through as I used the same font in all cover lines, contents page and double page spread. The only different font used was in the masthead (main title), by doing this it will give a unique look to the brand of the magazine and when people see that font anywhere they will know which company it’s from, the font for the masthead was again consistent in all three pieces.  In most magazines the cover lines are spread out on both the left side and the right side, and the main cover line which is generally about the main artist is usually somewhere in the middle of the page. The main cover line is what is meant to get the audience to read as it promotes the artist. This cover line should be bigger in order to stand out. This is also a convention that I followed in music magazines.



Also another well known convention, specifically for rap magazines, is that they prefer to use a medium close up photo of the main artist. I decided to challenge this convention as I felt using a medium long shot is very affective in the audience’s eyes. Using a medium long shot, it shows the pose and composure of the artist and also shows the location very clearly. Also the way my model is posed, is in a very attractive and eye catching way. I felt the way he is posed was a very suitable pose for the type of genre that I chose.  By looking at the following print screens you can see that I decided to follow the magazine I followed of the colour they used for the fonts of the main cover lines. I felt using this colour is very bright and attractive

For my contents page I decided to follow another contents page, but this time from Q magazine.  My contents page followed a lot of the conventions of a cliché music magazine contents page.  In a contents page, it is a good idea to have more than one picture. In my case I have 4 pictures; one should be main picture/headline. By having a variety of pictures, there will be a less chance of the reader to get bored as they can view many different things. All the images in the contents page are taken in the same location; you can see this in the background, by doing this it gives a sense of consistency and community. The magazine that I decided to use as a guideline was from Q magazine. The magazine was very intriguing with a lot of information plus images.

  

Yet again the colour and font of the masthead is consistent: