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

Ellie Walton

When producing a magazine (in this case a music magazine) there are many conventions you have to consider. These features tell us what the product is and what audience it is aimed at. If the conventions are achieved successfully; familiarity will be made with the public. They will then link the theme or house style of your product with a certain target audience/group of people that have a shared interest.

See the print screen images I’ve produced, without even looking at the search bar you can tell that they are pages of a music magazine.Here are conventions of a magazine.

FRONT COVER:

CONTENTS PAGE:

DOUBLE PAGE ARTICLE:

GENERAL: PHOTOS:

Masthead, banner, strap-line,sell-lines/ cover-lines, puffs, pugs, cover image, secondary images, anchorage,grid system

Columns, headings, sell-lines, ordering, images, captions, editorial, contact details, motif/ logo, page number,grid system

Headline / title, stand-first / slug / by line, drops cap, pull quote, columns,captions,grid system

House style, grid system, text / image balance, use of whitespace, serif or sans serif typeface / font choices, colour scheme, mode of address (direct or indirect)design choices

Shot size and angle used (mid shot, close up, long shot, high angle, low angle, mid angle) filters and / or lighting used, studio or location or live shot, posed or natural, mise-en-scene choices (costume, hair, make up, props) Editing -enhancements, air brushing, cropping,

Front coverMasthead- familiarising self with public

Puff-makes the text stand out; catching readers eye

Barcode- this gives the product it’s identity

Price

Buzz word- catches readers attention

Cover image

Secondary image

Secondary image

Anchorage

Anchorage- giving preview of some of the features inside the issue

Banner/strapline- contrasts with background and the rest of the text, automatically making reader look at the highlighted text

Indirect mode of address- less personal to the reader

Posed shot- direct stance- eye contact, compensating for the lack of directness in anchorage

Sell line- attracts readers

Contents pageConventions

Headings- brief explanation of feature

Page number

Image- reader will see image then know what the text beside it will be about and will then know the subject will be in the issue

Ordering- chronological order, this flows

Image

Colours: contrast of dark and light- main intention

Double page spreadConventions

Title- giving initial detail to genre, also play on words, new as in genre ( nu metal) and ‘new’.

Pull quote-intrigues reader to carry on reading.

Main image- straight away, readers know who this interview is with.

Web site-Letting reader know where to find cd

American house style

ColumnsSeparating text to make it easy to read

Stand-first- explains the content

Air brushing- creating a flawless skin effect, which differentiates the celebrity to the average person.

Subheading- gives extra information on the content of the interview

Front coversMasthead

The typeface for KERRANG Has raged edges, it has an exclamation mark at the end which demonstrates the nature of the magazine- very in your face, this also suits the chosen target market. I also with LOUDER chose to use a very bold masthead, in keeping with my magazine theme, I tried to get a similar font to KERRANG as you can see. Although it is a very bold font for both magazines; they are being overlapped with the cover image, which says that that is more important than the rest of the conventions surrounding it.

Sell lines/ puffs

KERRANG and LOUDER (my music magazine) have both used puffs to highlight sell lines that will attract readers to buying the issue. I looked at different existing KERRANG issues and this seemed to happen in most issues, so therefore I chose to use a puff for my sell line too.

Cover image

KERRANG have used a mid close up shot whereas I have chosen an almost full length shot, both images are of artists are looking directly at the camera, this creates a direct mode of address. They are both also posing , however differently, on KERRANG the male is ‘shhh-ing’ as that is relevant to the cover line. The model I have chosen on my front cover of LOUDER is a female holding a guitar which leaves readers presuming (if they don’t already know her) that her genre of music is to do with the instrument.

KERRANG cover line and front cover

LOUDER cover line and front cover

Colour schemes

When deciding the colour scheme for LOUDER I didn’t base it entirely on other music magazines I had looked at, I had taken not of the feedback from my focus group. I have gone for basic colours mainly, black and white with a ‘splash of colour’ like suggested. Where as KERRANG use a wide range of colours but it still works for them due to their target audience and main music genres in the content of the magazine.

Double page spreadTitle

LOUDERS title on ‘KirstD’ is a play on words, whereas KERRANG go straight to the point and use the bands name as the title. I have chosen different capital letters for a newspaper/ransom note effect like other music magazines choose to in double page spreads.

Subheading

Both subheadings are in red font against the shade black, which is a perfect contrasting combination, appropriate for the magazines. When I looked at subheadings on magazines, it is very common for the sentence to be followed by ellipses to make the reader want to read on to the main text. However my subheading is in a plain sans-serif font whereas KERRANG have gone for a bold capitalized sans-serif font that is similar to the title font.

LOUDER title

KERRANG title

LOUDER subheading

KERRANG subheading

Capital letters

On an article or interview etc, on the starting paragraph, the first capital letter will be much larger and sometimes different colour in comparison to the rest of the text. I as well as KERRANG have used a red larger font in this instance.

LOUDER KERRANG

Grid systems Both my magazine and KERRANG have used grid systems to organize the paragraphs so it’s easier for the reader to read.

LOUDER

KERRANG

Contents page

As my current contents page has limited conventions, I will continue to adapt until I have used a variety of them so I will produce a professional finished contents page that is magazine quality.

Evaluation

When I was creating my magazine I was looking at a KERRANG magazine to see the formality of its layout, so I could produce a similar looking magazine, that’s why in the process of making my music magazine I looked at different conventions of their issues to try and distribute them like they have done. I also analysed their pages to pick out the reasoning behind each aesthetic feature. I learned to adapt the magazine to suit its audience, in addition so that it was similar yet different to other magazines out there according to it’s colour scheme: this is what differentiates itself from KERRANG because I have chosen a less varied colour pallet for my house style and throughout. As well as choosing a classier colour scheme; I chose a fashionable more mainstream image for the front cover (even though she would come under the KERRANG styled music category).