In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms & conventions of a real media products?

Charlotte Martin

Overall conventions matching magazines

The conventions of my magazine 'Haste' match conventions of a normal magazine as it involves a cover, contents page and a DPS. On each of these pages there are images relating to text, text boxes, and variety of fonts as well as a masthead on the cover.

Next I am going to explain each part of my magazine compared to other magazines and conventions.

Having a large mid shot of my model who matches the target audience of indie rock well with her edgy look. I have cover lines on both sides of the magazine, again relating to my genre of Indie Rock with the popular well-known names that will draw attention.

‘HASTE’ COVER My unique selling

point ‘Haste Awards’ as it is similar to the famous NME Awards (in the Indie Rock genre) which is very popular, the audience may be interested in how to vote or see who won etc. The ‘heroes special’ involving headline acts inside show a few pages of the up to date gigs, albums and the past. These are unique selling points as they are not typically on every magazine and wouldn’t be in every ‘haste’ magazine.

I have created a masthead to stand out with an effect and follows the red colour scheme, it is placed at the top of the cover to meet the conventions. Every magazine has a masthead so therefore this meets the conventions of a real magazine.

I have added album images here which I have taken my self (TRIBES) and I created the Elena and Puzzles lbum cover myself.. This meets conventions due to the ‘WIN!’ banner at the bottom, referring to winning the albums and merchandise which is common in many magazines I have researched.

The main cover line matches conventions as this is the main part of the cover and stands out as it links with my main feature model on the cover.

‘Reading Fest’ is a promotion for the upcoming festivals of 2014, which meets the conventions of promotions as I am supplying the line up and advice.

The barcode meets the conventions of a real magazine, I did this to make it look as professional and believable as possible.

This was originally my inspiration for my magazine cover as I liked the colour scheme which I have added to my cover. I also took inspiration from this by fading out the background and having the model being the main image on the cover. I have used this to have the idea to have the model’s head over the top of the masthead as I think it looks professional.

‘HASTE’ CONTENTSI have columns in my contents page although I tried to challenge the conventions of a normal contents page by having more space than an extra filled up contents page, I used lines to separate the text and added different shapes to make it look more edgy and pretty almost.

My gig images meet conventions as they are tasters into what is to come throughout the magazine to the audience. I have also used captions below to explain these images as well as using page numbers throughout which again meet conventions of a real contents page.

I have created an editors note to meet the conventions of a magazine as this is used and also it explains what is it in the magazine and what is to offer so I looked at an editors note before this to get some inspiration.

The ‘WIN’ section applies twice in my contents which again meets the conventions of real magazines as competitions and offers targets the particular audience, in this case young indie rock lovers, who therefore would like free tickets or a chance to meet an artist (e.g. Miles Kane)

‘Contents’ matches the conventions as it states the type of page of the magazine it is as well as having the masthead here as this page is owned by the magazine itself,. The issue number isn’t always on a contents page but this still meet the conventions to keep track of the issues sold.

The image of my main model feature meets conventions as it is the largest image on the page and there is the explanation of the interview beneath. This gives the audience an in sight into the interview and the main feature, this case being ‘Elena’.

The ‘subscribe now’ box meets conventions to some magazines as I am bribing the audience to subscribe to ‘Haste’. I used this to add more of an offer to give something back to my audience.

This was originally my inspiration for my contents page as I didn’t want there to be an exact structure like the typical contents page. I firstly had ‘inside this week’ instead of ‘contents’ but I soon changed that. I used the ‘plus’ section here for inspiration and the red box in the right hand corner. I like the multiple images which I wanted to add to my contents also.

‘HASTE’DOUBLE PAGE SPREADColumns meet the conventions of a real magazine as this is the appropriate format for an interview, as well as having a different colour for the interviewer (I) and the feature herself (E). This makes it clearer which is which and adds to the colour scheme nicely throughout.

The blown up quote matches conventions of a real magazine as this is involved of the structure of the interview and always involves one of the main important points from the feature model.

I have added another picture and added text as ‘Puzzles’ is my features ex-band mates. On the other side ‘extra’ refers to the website and extra features.

The heading is bold and very defiant and matches the colour scheme as it is in red. The simplicity of the heading meets conventions as there are quotes underneath this which give the audience as its an insight into the interview.

The image of my model meets conventions as a double page spread in a real magazine contains a picture and possibly multiple pictures. There is always one main image which is shown here on my DPS (double page spread). Although I could say that because my text is spread over two sides of the A4 it could be challenging conventions but this has happened in magazines before. I have done this to be a little different and also I wanted my image to fade into the white background. This also allows more of my article to be shown which I feel is very important.

I wanted my DPS to have this structure of the image being faded out into the white background. I wanted my model to stand to one side like the model here and for them her to look directly at the camera.

I took inspiration from this structure and layout as the text goes around this image and is structured well.