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

real media products?

USE

I followed the convention of the artist being in front of the title/masthead similar to Blender and Rolling Stone, suggesting that the music magazine is already well-known and established. This is a factor that is recurring in music magazines based on the Pop genre, as the Pop genre emphasizes on Popular music, and as my magazine recognises this, I believe that the magazine should be well-known, as it does recognise well-known/popular music, which is why I put the artist in the foreground.

Followed the regular conventions of a magazine in general by putting the issue date, price, artist in foreground and barcode.

USE

I used the concept of only having one picture in my contents page as opposed to many different pictures, as I believe it draws attention away from the main feature of the issue of the magazine. In addition, I believe that through my colours scheme, the contents page is already very vibrant, so additional pictures would make the contents page look too ‘busy’. As the magazines I analysed are Pop magazines and both only have one picture, I believe that my magazine meets the conventions of a Pop music magazine.

I followed the convention of the features being on the side of the page rather than the centre, as these stories are secondary to the main feature. I put the features in a linear fashion similarly to the other Pop magazines.

Spin magazineBlender magazine

Blender magazine

Spin magazine

USE

I used a large picture with many other small pictures to demonstrate variations of the artist, ( similarly to Vibe magazine) to give the audience a variety of shots to look at, so they can know more about the artist. I made the largest photo the one with her holding headphones to emphasize her love for music, which is the dominant theme of this interview, and a theme seen in the double page spreads I analysed.

Parallels can be drawn from my magazine and the real magazine (Q) as I used a bold font and contrasted it with a font in italics. This was to differentiate the two different aspects from the title to the quote.

Vibe magazine

Q magazine

DEVELOP

In the rolling stone magazine, their sell lines are along the side of the magazine. However, in contrast to this, I put my sell lines at the bottom of the magazine front cover. Rolling stone and my magazine both use sell-lines to reinforce to the audience that it is a Pop magazine, as all these artists featured are Popular artists, however, I decided to put mines at the bottom as I wanted to differentiate it from the four main features on the front cover.

Rolling Stone magazine

Billboard magazine

Billboard magazine and my magazine both lay out our features in a linear fashion, however, I have developed this by adding borders which resembles volume bars e.g. (see picture). This was to reinforce the fact that this is a music magazine, which further adheres to the genre of the magazine subtly.( )

DEVELOP

I developed my features from the Blender magazine features by putting underlining my ‘Features’ title. This was done to reinforce brand identity, as the colours used to underline are the colours of my masthead. In addition to this, I also put the page numbers in boxes to alarm the audience to visit a specific page, as opposed to putting it in black like the name of the feature and explanation, which is seen in Blender magazine. I believe this conforms to the Pop genre as although it is supposed to look professional, the vibrant colours suggests having fun , which is a theme seen in a lot of pop songs.

DEVELOP

Although I used the contrast of small pictures and large picture like Vibe magazine, I also developed the idea by tilting the small pictures. This gave the double page spread a more youthful look, which I believe targets my audience as they are youth. I also developed the idea from having only the artists name in a different colour, to having the question and answers in a different colour. This gives the double page spread a vibrant look, as opposed to the double page spread looking bland, as when I only had the artists name in a different colour, a peer told me that something needed to ‘Pop’, therefore, I overcame this problem by differentiating the question and the answer by putting it in different colours.

CHALLENGEBlender magazine

Rolling Stones magazine

In many Pop magazines, I saw that their artists were framed in a medium long shot, and I even suggested this on my final draft. However, as in the interview, the artist is humble as opposed to overly confident, which I believe is better displayed by having a close up so the audience are aware of this from their facial expression. Arguably, I could have had the artist doing that facial expression in a medium long shot, however, I wanted this humble character of hers to be shown as her main characteristic, so to avoid distracting the audience from that impression, I chose a medium close up, which focuses on her facial expression. I believe that this challenges the idea of Pop artists being overly-confident, however, as Pop is constantly changing nowadays, I believe that this concept fit in well with the idea of evolving Pop, as impressions and stereotypes of Pop artists are constantly evolving from the innocent impressions in the late 1990’s with Britney Spears, to the risqué impression of Pop artists with artists like Katy Perry.

My final draft

Blender magazine

Rolling Stones magazine

My final draft

CHALLENGESpin magazine Blender magazine

I challenged the idea of the majority Pop magazine contents page not being extremely colourful, as their magazine in colourful in other aspects (e.g. in their front cover). However, I challenged this by making all of the pages colourful, to reinforce the youthful feel, which I believe should be consistent throughout a magazine.

CHALLENGE

I challenged the concept of separating writing from the picture. I put writing around the picture, to give a professional look, and to also reinforce that these answers in the interview are from the artist pictured, therefore a sense of ‘collectiveness’ needs to be demonstrated. Thus, I put the writing around her body.

OVERALL..

When making a magazine, I believe there are codes and conventions that need to be followed. However, I also believe that in order to a magazine individual and unique, yet still adhere to the genre , it is important to use, develop and challenge other magazines within that genre.