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

In my comparison powerpoint, we can see how I have used simialar forms and conventions of real magazines. This would include things such mastheads. They are generally placed at the top of the page and if not across the top they are generally placed in the top left hand corner. I have persoanlly decided to place mine in the left hand side as I think it looks the best being in this position. This is the same for using pull quotes on my front cover. They are used within magazines to draw in the attention of the reader and used in nearly all types of magazines. They generally apply to the forms and conventions of music magazines. The name of the magazine is in a memorable font and the logo is bold so that it can be easily recognised.

The whole styling of my general magazine applies to the forms and conventions of music magazines. The particular types of font that I use are all based around the genre of my magazine such as the font which I used on the double page spread which looked similar to newpaper letter cuttings in the colour orange. The colour scheme was also a large part of my magazine which follows with the forms. The colour scheme is important as it can change the whole look of a magazine. My colour scheme was based around the genre of my magazine so it would appeal to a pop rock audience. The colour scheme in magazines generally doesn't consist of any more than 3 colours and most of the time white and black are two of the colour that are used. (Which are two that I also used in my magazine along with orange). I also applied a bar code and price which are always used on any magazine.

My front cover image is very typical of complying with the forms of music magazines. The model looks directly at the camera to adress with the audience and so that her face can clearly be seen and recognised. The use of a mid shot allows us to see what she is wearing and so that the audience can get a better understanding of what type of person she is. By being able to see what clothes she is wearing we can also assume what genre of music she is from. In this case it is pop rock.

One way in which I found that I challenged the forms and conventions was by not using a large range of language techniques on the front cover to draw in the audience. I found that I focussed more on just writing a sell line that I thought would interest an audience rather than how it was said in a certain way. I also wanted them to be very short and snappy, which they are, and how they should be when following the forms and convetions, but they are worded slightly differently and use little language techniques. On the front however I did use a list of band and artists names as a teaser to make people interested in my magazine as it gives them an insight as to who may be featured in the magazine. This is a very typical form and convention of music magazines.  Using things such as free gifts or posters are also used in magazines to draw the customer to buy the magazine as they may feel they are 'getting more for their money'. I included a free poster in my magazine to do this.

On the contents page, I followed many of the forms and conventions of music magazines. This included using a large title at the top of the page saying 'this week' to let people know that this is the contents page and they can find out what's in this weeks issue. Its in bold and easy to read font so that is clearly visible at the top of the page.  Below this I have inserted many pictures which are realted to the articles in the magazine. I have also included the page numbers which help for navigation and are generally used on the contents page. I made sure that I kept to the colour scheme that was used on the front cover which is a general theme for music magazines so follows this form. I used a variety of headings such as 'regulars' and 'cover story' followed by a list of articles in a short sentence form which is the common way of listing articles in a music magazines. Here I found I used more language techniques or tried to word the headings so that they were easy to read such as 'q&a with Catrina K'.

On the double page spreads, I once again followed the forms and conventions of music magazines. However I did develop the interview. Most of the time interviews are really short and snappy questions and answers, but I developed this by making the interview more like a long conversation. This is because I feel it would allow the audience to feel more as if they were in the room with the interviewer and artists as nothing seems to be edited out or cut out to make it short and sweet. I feel that the audience would feel like they are getting to know more information because of the length of the reponses that I created and the detailed questions I made. The overall style of the double pages mainly stick to the forms and convetions of magazines. This included the use of writing the artists names in a bold and visible creative font so that they could be recognised as well as clear images that were text wrapped to create a nice flowing style of text.