Question 1:In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

By Elizabeth Langton

My magazine front cover, contents and double page spread portrays all the stereotypical codes and conventions of a classic music magazine; for example my front cover has;

>main cover image- including direct address which encapsulates the reader straight away, which will increase the amount of sales I make.

>masthead- which is eye catching yet simple and effective, I decided a good way to achieve this would to be use to contrasting yet complementing colours which make each other standout.

>main cover line- which is clear and concise, which gives information and his straight to the point therefore readers do not have to go looking for information which is a big characteristic of music magazines. This is again in two different contrasting colours, and a different font which sets that article away from all the others.

>Selling tag line- which is ‘NEW MUSIC FOR YOU’ which is exactly what the aim of my magazine is, to give up and coming bands and artists the publicity they need. And to cater to my audience and artists needs at the same time. This is a theme which is reoccurring through my whole magazine

>sub images- these sub images are to make my front cover look aesthetically pleasing to my audience, and also to give and identity to my cover lines, (these pictures are images I have took when going to music gigs)

>Puffs- in this puff I decided to include and incentive for readers which is similar to other leading magazines, however I thought I would try and incorporate the ‘new music’ vibe into my incentive and I used it to offer free Itunes download vouchers which will give my readers the chance to give there opinion on the worlds new music, because I think its important for bands to gain feedback and also for the public to be involved in the making and marketing of their countries future as after all we are the ones listening to it.

>cover lines- these sub cover lines give information and put into context the sub images, so my readers know what to expect when reading the magazine. I also again created this writing in order to be the same font as the rest of my cover lines, so my magazine would stay uniformed and professional, because if they were different it would make it look messy and would not command the readers attention.

>sub images- these sub images are to make my front cover look aesthetically pleasing to my audience, and also to give and identity to my cover lines, (these pictures are images I have took when going to music gigs)

>Issue information and barcode- are on the front of my magazine to give the reader data information about my magazine if they need it for a particular reason, the price is also included in this as it is a legal requirement that a price be on a product such as a music magazine, the barcode is also for when buying it. I decided to place all of this information at the right hand bottom of the page as it’s the least important in terms of aesthetically and the informations about the content of the magazine.

This is my music magazine contents page, in my opinion I think this includes all the normal stereotypical codes and conventions of a magazine contents page should, for example,

>masthead- at the very top of my page the skyline reads ‘REWIRE this week’ and is designed in the style of what its like on the front cover this is to keep the fonts and colour scheme uniformed as this will be the noticeable convention which will tell the difference from other magazines, however the main masthead on this page is ‘contents’ which tells you exactly what this page is to be used for, as if this wasn’t there my audience would be confused, I also used the same font for ‘contents’ to again keep my colour/design scheme uniformed, yet I coloured the word in white in order for it stand out on the black background.

>Main image- the main image on this page is related to the artist on my front cover, in particular this shows his new album cover, this is similar to what other magazines would do.

>columns- columns are very big codes & conventions of magazines in general, as, if text isn’t put into columns it becomes hard for the audience to read, unclear and lacks structure.

>puffs- this puff highlights that there is an exclusive interview with the band ‘honey honey’ which draws attention to this specifically, this is what most other magazines do to also draw attention to there biggest articles.

>sub image- the sub image incorporated on this page were from a gig I went to see and took pictures at, of a band called ‘honey honey’ I thought it would be a good idea to keep with in the theme of black and white therefore I edited them this way, in my head I had a vision of them being similar to a film reel or old looking photographs scattered on top of the page this is why they are placed in the positions they are, and I think I achieved this.

>Numbers for pages- page numbers are a vital piece of information on any contents page as that’s what they are for, which mine includes however I was weary not to put ‘pg’ or ‘1-2’ when writing my numbers as this is not typical of a music magazine, this is why they are just signal numbers in red to stand out to the readers, as this makes it easier for them to navigate my music magazine, to particular features they would prefer to read.

>subheadings- on my contents page the subheadings as well as page numbers help my readers to navigate around the magazine itself, and highlight the name of each section. These are highlighted in yellow, as this is one of the colours I wanted to be incorporated in my colour scheme.

>article information- all magazines include article information which similar to sub headings enlighten what to expect in the magazine that issue.

>Housestyle- the overall housestyle must consist all the way through the magazine, on front cover, contents and double page spread which I think occurs in my magazine, because it keeps the same colour scheme of black white purple and yellow, but also the mise en scen I wanted to take place which was for it to look both raw and edgy.

This is my double page spread which I think both develops and challenges the main codes and conventions of a double page spread for example;>headline- the headline on this page is ‘Busking his way to the top’ which is in a rough edgy looking font which I though represented the link between busking on the streets, I also think it is simple yet effective, I retrieved this font from a industry specialised website called ‘dafont’ which helped my magazine double page spread to look more professional.

>stand first- a stand first is the introductory paragraph to my article on this page, which gives information on what’s being wrote about specifically that week, for example my stand first talks about matt and what to expected from the interview itself similar to most other stand firsts in other music magazines.

>main image- I took this main image while out busking with matt, because I thought where better to take pictures than where he feels most comfortable and at home, I also thought this wouldn’t be a stereotypical background, this picture develops the codes and conventions by taking up both pages of my double page spread, however it also challenges them by this picture not having matts direct address, because I thought it looked more mysterious and effective this way.

>house style and colour scheme- my magazines colours are; black, white, purple, silver and yellow which I tried to kind of carry on, on this page, but I did feel that the colour red complimented the page more, but I thought the whole page looked better in all black and white because its unusual in my opinion.

>large quote- this large quote is stereotypical of most magazines, as I have quoted something matt says in the interview which I thought would catch the audiences attention, this is coloured in white I order for it to stand out on the dark background but also to keep in theme with the main headline to keep everything looking uniformed, however I put this in a different font because I didn’t want to take too much away from the headline.

>columns- columns are vital on any page with in a magazine because it just makes the writing look more uniformed and professional and also keeps the pages balanced and central, in my interviews case I used 3 columns however this will depended on the size of the actual article or interview and how much of the page you wish to take up.

>drop caps- drops caps are used in all magazines in order to illustrate to the reader where the article or interview begins, by doing this it grabs attention but is also put there for aesthetic reasons