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

Evaluation of Media ProductAlice Coulson Love

Front Cover – ELLE Magazine

Plain background so they can easily layer text

without it looking overcrowded or childish

and unprofessional.

Only one text colour so it’s not overly colourful

which could look tacky or childish and put off more

sophisticated readers.

Different but clear text fonts and styles of magazine article titles. The largest

cover lines will be the most important and the ones that sell the magazine the most

as they are what the reader’s are interested in.

Cover lines in bold with more information about the

article underneath not in bold as it’s less important and they want to catch the reader’s attention quickly.

Clear image with the model looking directly at the

camera. The lighting is good and there are no shadows

on their face or body.

Patterned dress draws attention to the model as

it’s the only colourful piece on the cover. It also gives

the impression of what genre and topics are in the

magazine.

Large, bold masthead which is easily

recognisable and is always at the top of the page.

Front Cover – NME Magazine

‘Warning’ is in red and catches your attention it’s

also emotive language which catches the reader’s

attention.

Cover lines in bold with more information about the

article underneath not in bold as it’s less important and they want to catch the reader’s attention quickly.

The model is wearing red which ties him in with the masthead and cover lines.

This sets a consistent house style which will be continued throughout the magazine.

Nothing overlapping the masthead so that’s easy for

readers to see. This is especially important for new magazines as they are not

yet established.

The cover lines have the same colours as the

masthead which helps maintain a house style.

This magazine has listed popular musicians/artists

that feature in this issue of their magazine. They are all from the same genre as the artist on the cover and the genre that this magazine represents – typically rock

and pop.

Plugs other popular artists of the same genre

Front Cover Challenges the generic conventions as it has the

artist’s head layering over the masthead banner. This is especially unusual in new magazines that aren’t yet

well established.I put the articles on the left hand side third so that they

will be read first by customers as this is the

most important information on the magazine cover.

The barcode and price are on the right hand side third as they are least important. I also want the customer to

decide they want the magazine based on the

articles before seeing the price as it is expensive.

I plug other well-known artists that are featured in the magazine to gain the readers attention

I put the main cover lines in red with more information in a smaller font and different

colour underneath

I used a red block theme for my house style and kept this

consistent throughout the magazine in order to

establish it

Contents Page – Heat Magazine Small article on

something typical of the magazine’s genre. It will

be the most important/popular article

in the magazine and typically has something to do with the artist on the

cover

Small masthead/logo and the date that this

magazine was issued. Image of cover on the

contents page.

Lots of smaller images which link to other articles

within the magazine – typical of the magazine’s

genre

Social media links to engage the younger and

more technologically aware audience

Main article in one colour and then more detail

underneath in another colour as that information

is less important

Articles are organised under

headings to make it easier for the reader to find what they’re

looking for

Contents Page I continued the use of the red block themed

house style

I included the main article on the contents page and gave some information about the

artist and the interview

The logo is at the bottom of the page as it would be in a typical

music magazine

I should have included a website address and social media links to engage the readers further. Also as my target audience are

quite young then they’ll be technologically

aware and use social media.

I included lots of detailed content in the contents. I categorised

them under titles to create a clear layout

I put more information under the article title

and put the page numbers in red to make

it easy to navigate

I used lots of images to visually engage the

reader

Double Page Spread – Q Magazine

Clear sans serif font with a drop case letter

at the start of the interview

Clear layout so you know exactly who the interview is

about

Page number and date and also the

magazine logo which maintains the magazine’s

house style

Large image of the artist which shows readers who the

interview is about and will catch their eye if they are just flicking

through quickly

Introductory paragraph shows what the interview is about-

artist may be going on tour or releasing new music

Typically the text is organised into three columns and the text is

justified to consolidate the

lines

Hyphenation is removed so that it’s easier for the reader to read the interview without

words being broken up

The image fits in with the mise-en-scene and genre of the

artist as well as matches the cover image to establish house

style

Double Page Spread Hyphenation is removed so that it’s easier for the reader to read the interview without

words being broken up

I included an image of the artists debut

album which is unusual as they

usually just speak about it in the first

introductory paragraph.

I included the logo and page number of the

magazine using the house style theme of red

blocks

I pulled out quotes from the

artist that I thought would be

of particular interest to the reader and will

make them read the whole article if they’d just been

skimming through

I arranged the interview text in three columns which were justified to

consolidate and define each column.

The artist’s name is clear so the reader knows

who the interview is about

The artists image fits in with the

Indie genre

In music magazine interviews they

integrate speech into the main text body rather than

use a q and a style interview

I use the block theme to maintain

house style but change the colour to grey to avoid

repetition

Final Response/Overall Conclusion

Overall I think that I included many of the generic conventions of a traditional music magazine, such as masthead, cover lines and page numbers.

I did challenge them in some forms through layering the cover image over the masthead and including an image of the artist’s album on the double page spread.

To improve and include more generic conventions I could have included a wider variety of artist’s images with different mis-en-scene. I could also have included social media links so that I could develop more links to the readers.