Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms

and conventions of a real media product?

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

• To make my magazine look professional I have used the conventions of existing music magazine in my genre. I based a lot of my original research on VIBE and FLAVOUR. I did a lot of LIIAR analysis on front covers, contents pages and double page spread… These are some print screens of my market research. Typical conventions include: masthead, medium close up image, barcode, issue number, date, price, logo, tagline, website, support images, tagline.

• On conducting my research I realised that there are a lot of conventional things that music magazines do that I also needed to do in order to make my magazine look professional. The most important thing in my opinion is the house style of particular magazines. Magazine tend to have a house style which relates to the theme of the mag, their target audience or the model on the front page. I chose the house style of red, white and black. Due to the fact that there are a lot of different shades of red, white and black I took a lot of time to find the right shade of colour for my magazine. I tried to choose the glossiest colours I could on Photoshop and publisher.

• Also in magazines all pages as such look as though they belong together. To make my separate projects look as though they belong together I have used my chosen house style throughout my front cover, double page spread and contents page. This makes all of my final products look as though they are meant to be together in a magazine… also I have done small things such as make sure my page number I have said my double page spread will be on is on the certain page. Before I started my front cover, double page spread, and contents page I spent a lot of time to finding fonts on Photoshop and Publisher that I thought would work well with my RNB genre. I chose a final few and put them on my blog so I could always relate back when I needed too, or when I felt that a new font was needed. It wasn’t very often I needed choose a new font as I thought it was important use the same or similar fonts throughout all of my products to create continuity.

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

Similarities Differences• Colour scheme • Website

• Font style • Overall ‘feel’ to the page

• Featured artists • Size of fonts

• Month of release

• Masthead

Similarities and Differences in Regards to my contents, double page spread and front cover in relation to continuity.

My double page spread and contents page both have a neat, tidy, easy to follow structure to them whereas my front page looks all over the place and it is hard to distinguish between things.

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

LIIAR analysis-Front cover:-The conventional shot you would usually find on the front cover of a magazine is a medium close up. I haven’t used this type of shot, as I wanted the text on my front cover to really stand out, if I had of taken a medium close up if would have covered a fair amount of my page and wouldn’t have been how I imagined it. In this shot though I have used the convention that the featured artist is looking directly at the camera in order to draw the audience’s attention to the magazine. -In preparation to my photo-shoot I put a lot of though into the outfit I wanted my model to wear. The main things me and my model decided on is that she would wear a leather jacket, have her hair long and wavy and have natural but glamorous make up. These kind of things are related to my RNB genre.

-I have placed the date and price in the middle of my masthead. This isn’t a very conventional thing to do and a lot of magazines have the date and price placed within the masthead. I chose to do this with the date because it shows obvious continuity through my front cover, double page spread and contents page. I chose to do it with the price so that there is an obvious indication as to who my chosen social class is. Also not many music magazines are as cheap as mine so I think it is important and is important to be drawn attention to as it will compete in the price region straight away. If you get the same genre of magazine but cheaper you would be more likely to buy the cheaper one.

-I chose to have my masthead across the left hand corner. This is conventional to many celebrity gossip magazines such as heat. Although heat isn’t a music magazine I still think the masthead works in relation to my genre. I chose a very digital simple font ‘poplar std’ for my masthead as I think it works well and looks neat on the page. I also think the size of my masthead works well on the page. -I have made my own barcode on barcode generator. I did this because when looking at barcodes of existing music magazines I decided just a bog standard barcode wouldn’t be conventional to a music magazine or my genre. I have placed a scan code on my barcode also.

-At the moment none of my features are the same font and I think this make the page look messy overall. The features kind of look all over the place. This sin’t very conventional to a music magazine and I think it makes it look unprofessional.

-This is conventional on all genres of magazine, it is an interesting way to add an extra feature onto your front page. I decided to do this on my contents page I have a footer that I think works well on hat certain page, I didn’t want to have two footers on following pages so I decided to use this.

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

LIIAR analysis-Contents Page:-I chose to put the month that my magazine would be issued on my contents page as it creates continuity from between the Front Cover and Contents. I chose to have the word Contents under the month as looking at my contents page I believe it is pretty obvious as to what it is. Also some of my articles need to be in date to be relevant. Nobody wants to read last months news. The title of the page ‘contents’ features on many music magazine across a wide genre.

-My main image was taken at a Take That concert in 2011. I chose this image as it shows individuality with my fingers been in the foreground and the stage/crows been in the background. I believe this image works well with the rest of the page as the colour red doesn’t feature so heavily the image as much as it does on the page. I believe this makes this certain image stand out against the rest of the page. -Although Take That aren’t RNB group I have made the image seem as though it was taken at another concert to make the image fit with my RNB genre. I have done this by stating in the caption that the image was take at a Trey Songz concert.

-When I was doing some market research about contents page I found that on the images themselves they were page number in one certain corner and also a caption. I chose to use the colours red and black to work with my house style, although it does match my colour scheme I think that if I were to do this again I would do more research on how to incorporate the page number and captions with an image on the contents page.

-This is an image I took at Brid Bash in 2012 of the Rizzle Kicks, who are an RNB band. I think this image adds more of an edgy theme to my contents page, as the image looks quiet Smokey and different compared to the style I was trying to go for. I edited this I image with a red tint to make it stand out.

-I took this image on the London underground. When I found this image in my documents it reminded me of the MTV TV show Teen Cribs. This was the inspiration for this photo caption.

-I used the convention of music magazine that aren’t particular in my genre but I really like the look of, for example Q magazine. I took the convention of the way they show their captions with the red boxes and the black heading. -I have used a footer at the bottom of my page and chose to have four RNB artist on in bold writing so they stand out. This is usually the kind of thing you would find on the front cover of a magazine or in a pop magazine. I decided to use this so that it was obvious to my audience what the genre of my magazine is without really reading any main text. I also decided on the festival with the most RNB artist on and added it to the footer. I think this promotes the chosen genre also and could possibly attract a new audience also.

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

LIIAR analysis-Front cover:-I got some inspiration from Q magazine in the way that they have the featured artists at the top of the page. I think this works well compared to the rest of the page as it defines who the artist is. Also due to the fact that the page number is small and not very noticeable I thought it would make it easier for the reader to see what page they are on.

-This is a pull quote from the article. I have chosen to put it here and make it a main feature of the page as I think it works well with my chosen genre for example I can imagine an RNB star grafiting something that bothers them on some sort of wall ect. This isn’t a conventional thing to many magazine and I have only seen this convention in VIBE magazine which I have taken a lot of inspiration from.

-I have chosen to put the introduction above the article so that I could just get straight into the article in them main body. I have tried to make it stand out by using the ‘bold’ effect however it doesn’t really look effective.

-This is my byline. I have also taken my inspiration form VBE magazine in order to make this. It didn’t take me very long at all and I think it looks re4ally effective and is an interesting way to incorporate a by line. I have also chosen to do my by line like this because I think it appeals more to my chosen audience in relation to the genre.

-I have chosen to put my masthead on the bottom of the page to create obvious continuity from my front cover and double page spread. I think having the masthead where and how I have placed it is more of a convention to an indie genre magazine but RNB magazines also use this idea just in a different way.

-This is my page number, having page numbers on a double page spread is a very conventional feature to all music magazines and also magazines that don’t fit into the music genre. As obviously there would be no point having a contents page if people cannot find the contents also it creates basic continuity from page to page.

-This is the main and only image on my double page spread. I chose only have one image as I wanted the main image to look very effective and the first thing you see when you open the page. A lot of music mags in my genre and not in my genre such as Q and VIBE use the convention of having one main image on one page on their magazines. I think this, I have decided to use this image as in my opinion it relates to the article.

For my article I decided to follow a question and answer structure, I did this because I honestly thought it would be easier and quicker so that I could spend more time on designing my double page spread. I found when researching double page spreads the conventional fonts where ‘Ariel’ and the conventional size is ‘11’. Although I do not think this fonts goes with my genre or will appeal to my chosen audience I have followed the convention due to the fact that I didn’t want to break to many conventions on my double page spread.

On my double page spread I have chosen to put the website up there, this is because I believe my chosen audience will spend a lot of time doing things social media related. Internet and things are what they will be into. This also follows conventions of many music mags.