In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Conventions exist within magazine's to keep consistency throughout and act as a traditional layout which is used within the industry. The conventions used within a magazine will entirely depend on the magazine genre and target audiences.
My magazine genre is a mix of rock and indie music. I chose these genre as they interest me and I feel the fan base for this is quite a significant one. The magazines in which I drew influences from were mainly KERRANG! and NME as these focus mainly on the genre of music my magazine is based on. Both of these magazines use certain set's of conventions within their magazines such as layout of the magazines being consistent in each issue as well as the colour schemes. These particular conventions appealed to me therefor I tried to include them within my magazine as best I could as they fit in well with my music genre. The predominant colours used within these magazines are red, white and black with small amounts of other colour incorporated and I tried to replicate this. I tried to ensure the colours I used within my magazine were gender neutral to have a wider potential audience, even though the most dominant audience is likely to be male.
The first convention to explore on the Front Cover is the masthead. I chose to centre my masthead in the top centre of my front cover, this is typically used in such magazine's as Kerrang, therefore I chose to follow this convention as I feel it gives the audience a strong impact on the magazines name and image.
Within my mis-en-scene on the front cover I have created a manipulated image of a brick wall to use as my background. By doing this I have made a black and white image which has quite a grungy look. I did this to help the image integrate the house style of the magazine and to enforce the genre of the magazine. Bricks will often suggest a street like cool look. I feel by doing this, it helps to create an atmosphere within the magazine.
As you can see within the mis-en-scene of this Kerrang magazine, they have used a background image of iron poles to portray the genre of the magazine such as i did within mine. Within my magazine I tried to use minimal amount of images however the ones i did use were of good quality. I chose to do this as i did not want the pages within my magazine to look too busy and this may seem untypical of a rock/indie magazine. Often other magazine's will chose a more busy look on their magazine to represent the crazy nature of rock music such as in Kerrang. However i chose a more simplistic look to help the audience to focus on what is important and perhaps to highlight a more serious and dedicated magazine. This may challenge the typical conventions of a rock/indie magazine.
I have used many cover line's on my cover to entice my audience into the magazine. I have included pull quotes, incentives and buzz words. These will hopefully initially draw people to my magazine to want to find out more. This is a typical convention i have used which can be seen throughout magazines within the media.
Some typical conventions are also very important to include within a contents page. You are able to see within my contents page I have included an editors note this helps to develop the convention of my journalist style of the written content of my magazine. I tried to make the content of my editors note relaxed and personal to try and help relate to the audience and to help them to identify. As the genre of my magazine is rock/indie I used a more informal tone.
I have separated my contents up with features in the top right of the page and regulars used throughout. This again will help the audience to navigate through the magazine and is a typical convention which is used in many other magazines. In the Kerrang magazine to the left, they have used this convention of separating the features and regulars.
To connotate the excitement of my contents page I have added many shapes, images and text to keep the audiences eyes busy on the page. Influences for my contents page came from magazines such as Kerrang and NME, as they are successful in using techniques to make their contents pages look busy and exciting.
An important convention i tried to include in my double page spread was the rule of thirds. This is to try and assist the audience into looking at the page in a specific way so they can appreciate it as a complete piece. As you can see the use of rule of thirds is used well within this real magazine double page spread:
The first thing to be noticed is the faces and the people in the band, then your eyes are then drawn to the large quote on the right hand side of the page. Finally you will start to read the information provided at the bottom of the page. This kind of format is what i was trying to achieve within the double page spread that i had created.
I feel the whole House style of my magazine is consistent throughout all 3 media products i have created and represent well how real music magazine also use this convention. This has been achieved by the same colour scheme of 3-4 colours, a simplistic look yet reinforcing the genre through all the different conventions. A final way in which I feel my magazine challenges typical conventions of a music magazine is the shape of my final products. Instead of using the regular A4 size, I decided to make it more of a smaller square shape. This I feel will help the magazine to stand out more from all other magazines as it is unique.
The first convention to explore on the Front Cover is the masthead. I chose to centre my masthead in the top centre of my front cover, this is typically used in such magazine's as Kerrang, therefore I chose to follow this convention as I feel it gives the audience a strong impact on the magazines name and image.
Within my mis-en-scene on the front cover I have created a manipulated image of a brick wall to use as my background. By doing this I have made a black and white image which has quite a grungy look. I did this to help the image integrate the house style of the magazine and to enforce the genre of the magazine. Bricks will often suggest a street like cool look. I feel by doing this, it helps to create an atmosphere within the magazine.
As you can see within the mis-en-scene of this Kerrang magazine, they have used a background image of iron poles to portray the genre of the magazine such as i did within mine. Within my magazine I tried to use minimal amount of images however the ones i did use were of good quality. I chose to do this as i did not want the pages within my magazine to look too busy and this may seem untypical of a rock/indie magazine. Often other magazine's will chose a more busy look on their magazine to represent the crazy nature of rock music such as in Kerrang. However i chose a more simplistic look to help the audience to focus on what is important and perhaps to highlight a more serious and dedicated magazine. This may challenge the typical conventions of a rock/indie magazine. I have used many cover line's on my cover to entice my audience into the magazine. I have included pull quotes, incentives and buzz words. These will hopefully initially draw people to my magazine to want to find out more. This is a typical convention i have used which can be seen throughout magazines within the media.
Some typical conventions are also very important to include within a contents page. You are able to see within my contents page I have included an editors note this helps to develop the convention of my journalist style of the written content of my magazine. I tried to make the content of my editors note relaxed and personal to try and help relate to the audience and to help them to identify. As the genre of my magazine is rock/indie I used a more informal tone.
To connotate the excitement of my contents page I have added many shapes, images and text to keep the audiences eyes busy on the page. Influences for my contents page came from magazines such as Kerrang and NME, as they are successful in using techniques to make their contents pages look busy and exciting.
An important convention i tried to include in my double page spread was the rule of thirds. This is to try and assist the audience into looking at the page in a specific way so they can appreciate it as a complete piece. As you can see the use of rule of thirds is used well within this real magazine double page spread:
The first thing to be noticed is the faces and the people in the band, then your eyes are then drawn to the large quote on the right hand side of the page. Finally you will start to read the information provided at the bottom of the page. This kind of format is what i was trying to achieve within the double page spread that i had created.
In the first third of my feature page of my magazine the audience is drawn to the title, cover line and pull quote of the article. By the second third they are then drawn into the main image/signifier and into the main body of the text. Lastly they will see the competition based at the bottom half of the page. This helps to develop this convention in the real media product.
Another convention i have used within my feature page is the column structure of the main body of my text. I have added white blocks behind the text the reinforce the column structure. it gives the magazine a professional look and indicates where the main article is quite obviously. Column structure is used in every magazine or newspaper article as this is the standard way of laying out written information in a clear way.
An additional convention i had to consider when creating my double page spread was the correct use of white space. If there is too much white space this could lead to the page looking bare and boring leading the audience to have little interest. However if there is not enough white space this will make to page look to busy and messy and the audience will not have the desire to read the article. Therefor i had to create an equal balance of white space. Instead of having a solid coloured background i chose to manipulate an image of corrugated iron to add more texture to the feature.
However my magazine also challenges some conventions of real media products. The niche of my magazine is to attract the widest audience possible. I tried to achieve this by making it a gender neutral and perhaps being a more simplistic version of a typical rock/indie magazine.
Another convention i have used within my feature page is the column structure of the main body of my text. I have added white blocks behind the text the reinforce the column structure. it gives the magazine a professional look and indicates where the main article is quite obviously. Column structure is used in every magazine or newspaper article as this is the standard way of laying out written information in a clear way.An additional convention i had to consider when creating my double page spread was the correct use of white space. If there is too much white space this could lead to the page looking bare and boring leading the audience to have little interest. However if there is not enough white space this will make to page look to busy and messy and the audience will not have the desire to read the article. Therefor i had to create an equal balance of white space. Instead of having a solid coloured background i chose to manipulate an image of corrugated iron to add more texture to the feature.
However my magazine also challenges some conventions of real media products. The niche of my magazine is to attract the widest audience possible. I tried to achieve this by making it a gender neutral and perhaps being a more simplistic version of a typical rock/indie magazine.
I feel the whole House style of my magazine is consistent throughout all 3 media products i have created and represent well how real music magazine also use this convention. This has been achieved by the same colour scheme of 3-4 colours, a simplistic look yet reinforcing the genre through all the different conventions. A final way in which I feel my magazine challenges typical conventions of a music magazine is the shape of my final products. Instead of using the regular A4 size, I decided to make it more of a smaller square shape. This I feel will help the magazine to stand out more from all other magazines as it is unique.
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