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

Title

As you can see my magazine uses a similar form of title to Kerrang! magazine. They are both bold, in capitals and have an added exclamation mark at the end for added impact. They both have music-related headings, Volume being the loudness of rock music and Kerrang! being the onomatopoeic sound of an electric guitar. The font I used called DCC Sharp Distress Black is of a similar style to that used my Kerrang! in the sense that they are both quite rough and rugged looking, like graffiti. However, I have developed my title by adding a white border and a more rough effect to the middle of it using Photoshop, so that I did not have to use a white background to make it stand out. I also created my own red sound-wave to sit behind the title, which relates to my title ‘Volume!’ as volume is measured in sound waves. This red wave also ties in with my red, black and white colour scheme. My title also challenges the conventions as it sits over my main image rather than being on a background, however this works due to the clever positioning of my image and the white border effect I used on the text to ensure it stands out while keeping my entire image visible to the audience.

People

The people used in my magazine follow some conventions of rock music magazines. They are dressed in typical rock clothing, red and black, t shirts, jeans and military boots. My model cover has a similar style to rock musician Hayley Williams, who appears in magazines such as Kerrang! and NME a lot. The people also look like musicians due to the props I have them use, and the positions I put them in. I also used real live musicians in my magazine, as I was lucky enough to attend rock music gigs to gather images. These are also used in many popular rock magazines as the target audience of magazines like Kerrang! regularly attend gigs and love live music. However, my people do challenge some conventions, as rock music magazines mostly have bands of males on their covers and throughout their magazines. I have challenged this by making a solo female rock artist my cover model and the feature of my double page spread. This would not affect the sale of my magazine though, as she is young, feisty and clearly a rock artist that my audience could easily relate to. I also think it’s a fresh look at rock music and an interesting change to the conventions. I did also include some males in my magazine on my contents page as my target audience includes both males and females with no bias and so will appeal to everyone.

Artist title

My main feature title featured on the front cover of my page follows some conventions of rock music magazines as you can see from this comparison of my magazine and Kerrang! magazine. I have used a clear from that is easy to read and added a drop shadow to make it stand out. The size of my font is also similar to the size of their font, as I felt this would attract the reader’s attention. I also used smaller text above and below my title to add more information to the story, we have both used a sentence about the artist’s connection with rock and fame. I have however developed the conventions in some way, as my background is not a neat black rectangle behind the smaller text, but a rugged black scribble. I think that this works as it gives off a rock edge and still look neat and makes the text stand out whilst appealing to the genre of the magazine. I think this adds some depth to the page and makes it more exciting and genre specific.

Suggestion of Genre/Props

I have used conventions of rock music magazines by including typical instruments and equipment of rock musicians as this will relate to my audience. I have included headphones, drumsticks, an amp and both electric and acoustic guitars throughout my magazine to connote rock. I also challenged this by taking some posed photographs of my model with the guitar, as most magazines have natural shots of musicians playing guitar. However I think this works as it gives my artist an edge and I have also mixed this in with natural pictures of my artist using the guitar as well as other music equipment.

Front Cover

My magazine has a similar target audience to that of Kerrang! magazine, so when doing my research I looked into this a lot and used it to loosely base my magazine on to ensure I was pleasing my target audiences wants and needs. I used certain conventions from the magazine in my own, for example the main title has a similar type font to Kerrang!’s, but I developed this convention by adding my own twist with the use of the white border to make it look more rugged. I also noticed that a lot of poster specials were used on the covers, so I created one too. However, I developed this by making it a live poster special as I had a lot of access to live bands already, plus my trip to LA allowed me to take some photographs of the rock band Biffy Clyro, who is also popular with my target audience. I challenged conventions by the placement of my text, as Kerrang!s text is usually quite regimented, where as my magazine features text on more edgy angles to make it more exciting.


Contents Page

As you can see in the above image my contents page took a lot of inspiration from Kerrang! magazines contents page. I used some conventions from this, such as the house grid style seen almost every week in Kerrang! magazine. This allowed me to set out each feature story clearly so the audience could navigate around the magazine easily. I used a main image of an artist looking more professional than on the front cover along with 5 smaller images. Plus, an index on the side of the page with clearly labelled headings and sub-headings that related to music such as ‘Album Reviews’. I also adopted the dark yellow colour used for headings and such, as I thought it was a bold colour that still connoted rock in some way. However, I challenged this by incorporating the same deep red colour as on my front page, as I thought it added more excitement to the page, linked it with my front cover and also connoted rock better. I also changed the position of the editor’s note as I thought that it would work better at the bottom of the page as one of the less important parts of the page. I also added a subscription offer to the page as I felt that this would appeal to the students in my audience as they are always looking to save money.

Double Page Spread

My double page spread is loosely based on the style of Kerrang!’s double page spread like the one featured above. I used the conventions of the house colours of red, black and white in my own magazine, just like I did on the front cover. This links all the parts of my magazine together and connotes rock music. Chose to use a similar layout to the MCR double page spread, as I felt it worked very effectively and would make a good template. Another thing I used was the small sidebar of song reviews and lyrics, as this related to my story perfectly. I also used a similar film strip of pictures to give the audience different views of my artist. I made my title a quote from the artist and in a similar rock-style font to the one featured about as I thought this was a bold attention-grabbing start to the page. I also developed some conventions, for example instead of having monochrome pictures I made them sepia, as I felt this tied in better with my colour scheme and added a bit more excitement to the page. My story also developed conventions, as it is written in a similar style to the MCR one, but I have added a bit more depth and detail to the description of songs. I challenged conventions in this by changing the point of view of my model to the audience. I had her looking at the camera rather than away, as I wanted her to relate to my audience more. I also did this in my small film strip of images as I wanted it to look as though she was opening up to the audience.