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

My Magazine front cover has challenged and used conventions of a regular magazine front in different ways, as I have not put the Masthead directly in the centre of the magazine and instead have put it on the left side, I have done this so that the masthead did not divert attention from my photo so I put it in the available blank space on the page. In contrast though I have followed the conventions of a typical magazine by having the main story as the largest thing on the page, I did this as usually big bands attract attention to a magazine and therefore if I made the name large I would attract more attention to my magazine.

One of the magazines that I took my inspiration from is NME, from this issue I copied the unconventional convention of having the masthead in the top corner so that the image is not constricted, I also made my coverstar’s story huge just as NME have done here with Arctic Monkeys so that I am able to attract the attention to my magazine with an enticing story. I also copied NME by having a bar at the bottom of the cover, yet mine was different as they had put four different artists on the bottom whereas mine was a story. I have shown this at the bottom of the page in order to make a comparison.

My contents page has also challenged and followed conventions in different ways, one way in which is has challenged conventions is that I have the date of the issue in the top right corner, I saw this on a contents page and thought it was aesthetically pleasing to see and therefore I incorporated the same feature into my magazine, yet when I checked other magazines I saw that there were no others that used this convention. I have also followed conventions in the way that I have set my contents page out like a typical contents page, I have made it chronological and therefore I have made it easier for the reader to locate certain articles they need, yet an issue I had was that I ran out of room as I had to incorporate photos, so at the bottom you can see that I have let the reader know that there are more stories in the issue.

The magazine that I took inspiration from for this design was Q magazine, at first I did try to imitate the contents page completely but then I realised that this would be difficult as the contents page would look sparse. Therefore I took the elements of the top banner and the layout of the contents on the left of the page. I changed my version to stretch out down the page too in order to fill out the page and remove all blank spaces, instead of having a photo of an artist as the background I put one at the top right under the bar and one at the bottom right just above some text, I thought this showcased the variety of photos that I had taken for my magazine.

My Double Page Spread has also followed and challenged conventions in different ways, one way that it has followed the conventions of a double page spread is that it has been split into three different columns of text, I have done this in order to make it easier for the audience to read the article and also because if they read other music magazines, this is the typical style they will be familiar with, so therefore if I mimic other styles of double page spreads my target audience will familiarise themselves with my magazine. A way in which I have challenged the conventions of a double page spread is that one of my pages is taken up entirely by a photo, this is not typical yet I wanted the band to be the focus point and for my audience to recognise them, also they are looking directly into the camera which is aConvention too as it allows the audience to connect with the band and feel familiar with them.

The double page spread that I based mine off was this one from this one from VIBE magazine, as you can see Vibe magazine has also filled one side of the double page spread with a photo which I have incorporated into mine, the second page however is slightly different to mine, it is similar in it’s split of the titles to the text yet my text goes further up the page than VIBE magazines does, I did this in order to make sure I have no blank spaces and so I am able to get the whole article in.