Brett Moore Evaluation

AS MEDIA STUDIES MUSIC MAGAZINE EVALUATION.

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

My music magazine focuses on the combined music genres of rock and heavy metal. As a result there are many codes and conventions of said magazine genres that must be adhered to when creating a professional representation of a magazine in said genre. Such codes and conventions are divided between sections that constitute to the overall creation of any magazine. These are;

- Front Covers- Contents Pages- Feature Articles

The general conventions of front covers in rock/heavy metal use the notion of full bleed images that often bleed over the masthead.

Here we see a direct comparison between one of renowned rock magazine Kerrang! And my music magazine first draft front cover. Here we can see I have followed the conventions of Kerrang!’s magazine in that I have used a full bleed image with the same effect. Furthermore the color scheme similarities are evident between both the Kerrang! Style model and my first draft, through the extensive use of reds, black and yellow. This is a generic use of colour schemes in a multitude of rock music magazines and therefore in order to create a professional music magazine it was integral for me to use said colour schemes, as is evident. Furthermore the main caption is supported by a pull quote I both of the above images therefore showing how close I tried to emulate the general conventions of a specifically chosen style model due to the relative administrative details.

Brett Moore Evaluation

Moving on the contents pages are vital to any music magazine and in general should be clear and concise. Rock magazines are no different and the colour schemes – as aforementioned – are further used in the contents pages to make the magazines identity clear to its readers.

These two images make it easy to ascertain the great detail to which I evaluated the conventions of music magazine contents pages and how they reflect the genre of my magazine and the professionalism of my piece. This lead to the addition of the editor’s column of my piece and the use of box outs and wide spread images across my entire contents page, as I tried to emulate my style model to a professional and appropriate standard. Despite this however comparatively my first draft does exhibit a multitude of negative space where as Kerrang!’s contents page fills the entire page and the page is busy and full of the appropriate information for its readers, to which I believe is something that I must correct if I am to make my magazine an accurate representation of a mainstream rock music magazine.

The final factor and conventions to consider to which help to establish any music magazine is the main feature article. This is often the main reason as to why a reader would want to buy a magazine and duly the article must be aesthetically pleasing as well as written well. Here we see a comparison of one of Kerrang!’s feature articles alongside part of my feature article.

Brett Moore Evaluation

As is evident, I tried to emulate this style model on the right as I felt this is was the most probable style model to which I could emulate professionally. The use of a white background with bold and clear mastheads as well as evident pull quotes aided my attempt at emulating this style model. Despite this however it is clear to see that Kerrang!’s feature article follows a much more informal structure in terms of the masthead and pull quotes to which helps to incorporate the photo with the text and is appealing to readers, however my draft is much more formal and structured and seemingly follows a different structural convention to the style model and so to address this it would be beneficial to exhibit a similar us of a mastheads and page design.