Evaluation Question 1

Q1) In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?

To help find the conventions of a typical music magazine I looked at two music magazines: ‘NME’ and ‘Q’, both circulated across the country and popular to a wide audience. NME magazine established in 1952 was the first British paper to include a singles chart and has been widely popular ever since. This magazine is mainly aimed at teenagers, as its cover stars include those of teenage idols, for example, the cover I chose to research before creating my own magazine, Gerard Way was featured, lead singer of the band My Chemical Romance, widely popular with teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17. On the cover of the same edition, the magazine offers free posters, which would obviously not interest the mature audience. In contrast to this I also looked at Q magazine, aimed at older music buyers between the ages of 20 and 40, from the contents page the magazine contains an extensive review section, new releases, film and reviews; things that the younger audience member may not appreciate.
NME magazine cover contains a lot of different colours, which all follow a theme, the font is slightly animated, and text is large and bold filling almost 70% of the magazine cover. The language used is informal as a series of puns are used ‘Gerard goes to Hollywood’. The Q magazine cover differs, as the font is sharp and old, and covers only 50% of the page as the background full body wide-angle shot stands out. The font colour is used so that it stands out on the image but does not necessarily follow a theme, the language is formal and does not give much away, making you want to go on and read about it inside the magazine.
By looking at these magazines I decided that I wanted my magazine to slot into the gap between the audience ranges that both magazine cover, perhaps overlapping them slightly to create some healthy competition. By looking at these magazines I had plenty of ammunition to create a realistic version of my own magazine. Like most magazines the front cover shows large, bold headings including the name of the magazine ‘Bass’ and articles featuring in the issue of the magazine. It also shows a cover picture, which takes up the whole of the page and the various titles on top. The title of the magazine (‘Bass’) is placed in the top left hand corner as it is one of the first things the reader will see when looking at the cover, this is because of the way we read media in our culture from left to right, it is the first thing any person will read and notice. Throughout the contents and the cover I have decided to use the same font so that a theme is set, this font is ‘Elementary Light SF’ which in some cases I have made bold, and added coloured borders to. This follows the trend of all magazines. When placing the title of the magazine over the image I chose not to overlay part of the image over the title as I wanted the title to be visible, however having part of the image overlaid on the title is something regularly seen on magazines. On the front of Bass magazine, I have presented the group ‘Metropolis’ as quite relaxed and not dressed up formally, this signifies their status normality; teenagers may be able to relate to them, having just finished school. Their clothing is fairly normal, following today’s trends, however Zac (on the right of the cover) is wearing a polo shirt, which may present him as a mod. The film Metropolis is a fantasy of industrial take over, band members’s expression is quite serious and dismayed showing that perhaps what they stand for is against this modern industrial image (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/).
In the contents page I have followed the conventions of a real magazine by adding different features, these include, having a copy of the magazine name clearly visible about the page. Also, I have added a section known as ‘On the cover’ which shows the reader where to find articles featured on the cover. In the layout of the contents page, I have set sections to organise different articles. For example: ‘Gig’ and ‘Entertainment’ which can be seen in most other magazines, also in the contents I have put pictures of other things featuring in the magazine.
In looking at interviews form other music magazines, I have chosen a structure and layout, showing a large picture on the left page also featuring close up portraits of each band member. On the other page I have written an interview with the band. In following conventions of other magazines there is a large bold title stretching across the two pages, each picture shown throughout the magazine is labelled by who took the image ‘Portraits shot by...’.