Question One:In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This was my second time making a magazine so I was already aware and use to the traditional conventions of a magazine.

I think the front cover of my magazine is similar to published magazines such as ‘NME’

Before constructing my front cover page, I looked at magazines with the same genre as my own ‘indie’. One of the magazines I looked closely at ‘NME’.

PUBLISHED MAGAZINE

MY FINAL PRODUCT

My Front CoverMy front cover includes a masthead that fills the width of the front cover, a barcode positioned at the bottom right of the magazine and the main image is of the main feature artist and the image takes the majority of the page. My front cover follows most of the convention of a typical magazine front cover, however, it challenges these norms. Although it had cover- lines, they're not usually one or two words with sublines explaining them. Also, my main image isn’t s close up shot, but rather a mid-shot.

MASTHEAD

PUFF

BARCODEWEBSITE

PULL QUOTE

STRAP LINE

COVERLINEMAIN IMAGE

HEADLINE

PRICE

PUG

Comparison of Cover Page

As I have position my front cover in-between two published NME front covers, you can see that there are so differences and similarities between them. This therefore makes it evident that I have followed some of the conventions of a magazine front cover, but I have also challenged them.

MASTHEAD

You can clearly see that my masthead follows the conventions of a magazine masthead. When I had to decide the name for my magazine, ‘polarize’ was the most popular amongst those I handed my questionnaire out to. The name is very unique and easy to remember, which is a reflection on my magazine.The colour scheme for my magazine is very simple, black, white and purple. I did this so that it would be easy to read and the attention goes to the title.

My Contents PageMy contents page, like my front cover, uses the forms and conventions of a real contents page. However I developed and challenged these conventions by having only one line dedicated to each page instead of one line including the page number and title accompanied with a subline below it giving more detail about the title.

MASTHEAD

MAIN IMAGE

WEBSITE

IMAGE

IMAGE

SUB HEADINGS

SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION

PAGE NUMBERPAGE

NUMBER

HEADLINES

Subheading ComparisonsOn the left is the main menu text of my contents page, and on the right is of kerrang’s main menu text. There are similarities between the two. The subheadings are positioned in the same way, the page numbers are both on the left and the subheadings both have a bold background to allow the text to stand out more. This shows how my contents page followed the traditional conventions. On the other hand, I also challenged these conventions as my contents page doesn’t include a sentence descriginig the page number as most contents pages do.

My Double Page SpreadMy double page spread uses a completely different colour scheme to the front cover and contents page, but this is conventional. The page also includes a stand first, a pull quote and a drop capital so that it follows the traditional conventions of a magazine double page spread.

ARTIST NAME PULL QUOTE

MAINIMAGE

CREDIT

PAGE NUMBER

MAIN TEXT BODY

STAND FIRST

HEADLINE

ComparisonsFor my double page spread, I was very much inspired by the double page spread shown below. This double page spread is from the magazine NME and it shows a large main image of the featured artist taking majority of the first page, which is also what I did.

I think this page was very successful as it is very similar to the published magazine. It follows the conventions of a double page spread but it still looks unique .