Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product is a music magazine which uses many forms and conventions of a real music magazine today.  In order to ensure my magazine looked as professional as possible I first looked at the genre of music my magazine would focus on and the colours I was to use to best represent my magazine in order to set the whole tone. The genre I would base my magazine on was Rap and Rhythm & Blues and knowing the genre I knew that it’s not seen as boring but lively, cool, edgy, simple and others. From this I chose the main colour scheme of my magazine to include the colours of white, black, grey and red, with the red to be the outstanding colour as the colours white, black and grey would mould together calmly. The colour scheme is one of the focal points when thinking about the design of a music magazine, they may also relate to the features included to the magazine. Also when choosing the colour I took into consideration the main image I was planning to use for my front cover as my models wore puffy and slightly luminous jackets one was blue and the other black, I thought the whole colours scheme chosen would best show off my models. These are factors taken into consideration in the making of a real music magazine so my methods follow the usual conventions of a music magazine

The name of my music magazine is “The Sound”. The font used for my Masthead is not seen anywhere else in the magazine to keep it bold, original and ensure it stands out from the cover lines on the front page; the size of the masthead also helps this.  My mast head is made up of two fonts, with the only other font being used on one letter in the masthead the “S”. This was done in order to have that letter stand out from the rest as to ensure that it is remembered because that letter “S” would be used a lot in the identifying of the magazine almost like a logo as seen on the contents page where I use the letter to cover the whole page but at a low opacity to ensure that the contents of the page is still seen clearly.

As directed my models wore clothing Typical to music artists of the magazines genre in today’s industry to ensure that my models looked and feel like as if they were real music artists in my main image and that this was clearly shown and interpreted by my target audience which would most like likely be predominantly teenagers to people into their 30’s. On a Real music magazine it is usual for the name of the artists used in the front covers main image to be included on the front cover itself as it is with mine following a convention of music magazines. Another way in which I followed conventions of a real music magazine was to put my barcode and price on the front cover of my magazine but placed as to not interfere with the image or cover lines in anyway.

For my contents page I made it in an unconventional way not really following how most music magazines would layout the page. Although I used a few images with page numbers to show where certain articles would be in the magazine as well as one that would be seen as an exclusive. A few words from the editor as seen in a few music magazine contents page was placed in the bottom corner of my magazine also. And as usual in magazines a list of features and their page numbers for easy location in the magazine.

My Double page spread has as typical in most music magazines a nice image of the artist or group that the spread focuses on nice and big, which can sometimes take up to a whole half of the double page and a little into the other half as does mine. The double page spread also has a written article of the group explaining what heir about, what the article is for and is focusing on about the group. The written part of the spread is not to interfere with the main image like on the front cover of the magazine. As I had seen in a few music magazines a quote from the main artist o r group would be in the double page spread in a different font and usually colour to draw attention it, I employed this idea in to my double page spread, the same font and colour is used also for the name of the group placed on top of the image but at the bottom as to not interfere with the image still, following conventions of a music magazine double page spread.