Evaluation Question 1

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

Title:
I decided to title my magazine 'Download' which is a term commonly associated with music as nowadays many people use the internet to download music such as iTunes. I felt that the word 'download' would be easy to associate with music especially as there is currently a rock festival called 'Download Festival'. Even though it is not specifically a music term, it is similar to 'Kerrang' which is the sound made by an electric guitar when playing a power chord; this allows people to make links to the genre of the magazine.  Another magazine on the market is titled 'Rocksound' which basically means the sound of rock. By titling the magazine that it is very easy for people to be able to classify which genre it belongs to. 'Top of the Pops' and 'We <3 Pop' magazine feature the word 'pop' making it obvious which genre is the main feature of the magazine. The issue with my magazine title is that you are able to download any genre of music, making it hard to distinguish a particular type which means that it could arguably be too broad. However, this issue happens with 'NME' which stands for 'New Music Express' which doesn't classify a particular genre, it just covers new music in general. A main aim of my magazine title was to make it memorable, as a well known word which isn't a every day word but is known by every body I am pleased with the title. Overall, I feel that my choice of title was successful as there was a range of possible conventions to use and I did use one to ensure my magazine would be believable in the magazine industry. 


                                                                                  The title of my media product has used the conventions from 'Kerrang!' magazine by having the title crossing the whole of the width of the magazine. As well as this, they both contain design elements which give a slight effect however they are not too overpowering making them unreadable. 'Blender' and 'Rocksound' (see images below) also do this, showing it to be a well known and liked technique. Furthermore I used a sans serif font which is more casual than a serif font showing the target market to be more middle/working class and be relaxed rather than people who are rich and want elegance. This could also imply that the target market are young adults because they worry about being relaxed more than being elegant. I feel that the look of my title went well because it looks similar to Kerrang! of which is a successful well known magazine which has the features to attract the correct market. When choosing this font I used the default selection of Photoshop fonts as well as looking on http://www.dafont.com  which contains a library of all different types of fonts.


There are a range of magazines on the market of which fulfil the convention of having the title covering the width. Therefore, I feel that the positioning of my title was suitable and went well. 

Mise-en-scène of images:

The setting of my image for the front cover is taken internally as a studio shot. By doing this I was able to instruct my model to do a variety of poses until I found this particular one. This gave me a larger amount of good quality images to look through in order to find an appropriate one.  I feel this was a good choice to make because it would be hard to capture a good clear image where the model looks good if I took it whilst they were preforming. My model is a 17 year old girl, because of this I had to base my magazine around her so that it fit her e.g. I wouldn't be able to do a divorce story with her because it would be hard to believe. As well as this I didn't want someone who looks like they are 12 to be on the cover because it will put the older teens off because they want someone to look up to who is a similar age so they can relate to them. With this model successfully looking in the age range of at least 16, I was able to do a upcoming star of her story of rising to fame with her as this would be a believable story as it correlates with real life stars such as Justin Bieber. The model is also clean cut, she is not a grungey character who would appeal to a different target audience to what I was aiming for. The costume of my model is a plain selection of clothes which cannot exactly classify her into a group in society. However she looks like a sweet pretty girl who would not fit into the emo scene; this effect has also been created due to her friendly and welcoming pose. I feel the use of a pink top brings out her girly side which could make her be viewed as a pop princess. The dress code looks quite party but nothing too extravagant. The editing of the image has been attempted to be done so that it looks more natural rather than over edited. I hardly made any major adjustments to the image, only changing things like the brightness to make it stand out more. I feel that I have made the image look professional. An important factor to notice is that there have been no props used, there have even been no accessories e.g. a hair flower and sunglasses. Overall, I decided to do all these things as I felt they corresponded with my previous research that I carried out on existing media. I felt that I have met the criteria as the image (which has been barely edited) is a studio shot, the artists are young and the girls on the cover look either smart casual or party in their outfit. 

These are the two images of which have been used on my contents page: 

The image on the left is a studio shot of which has been taken externally. This photo was a last minute photo therefore I wasn't able to dictate which costume I wanted. Therefore the costume used here is a casual look which mixes up the dress code of which I've used on the other pages of my magazines. For this photo there is a different setting for where the photo was taken, which challenges the other images which have been taken against a plain wall. This photo being taken externally meant that the lighting would depend on the time of day. I took this photo at night when it was dark therefore I had the artificial lighting of street lamps which I could not control. The pose here is relaxed with the tilt of the blonde model giving the relaxed effect as she is not standing square. I personally don't really like this photo as I think it looks amateur making this photo a bad choice; this is one of my weaknesses of my magazines overall look.

The photo on the right was originally planned to be used on the cover; this image looks more glam than the other photo. I tried to edit out the shadow in this image however despite me trying it didn't work out so I had to leave it be and hope it wouldn't cause too many issues. The shadow comes from the use of artificial lighting of a standard lightbulb. The pose consists of a subtle smile and a confident action as she looks stern and high by holding her hip, however by the other arm being free it makes it look more relaxed. Once again no props have been used on either images. I feel that this image works well and looks good however I question whether or not it is a suitable choice for a contents page and whether it would belong on the cover.

The photo used for my DPS: 

It consists of the same outfit which was used on the cover which makes the model recognisable to readers. However to make it different from the cover, the hairstyle has been changed and the prop of vibrant, sparkly flowers has been added; making it more interesting. It could be argued that the flowers are an unnecessary and irreverent prop. I do agree with that point however I still thinks it works well for the photo despite it being inappropriate for a music magazine. In the Justin Bieber DPS (see below) the prop of a chair is used which challenges the conventions where usually the model is standing up. The fact that both the model is smiling with both her arms being in use and a knee being bent gives a welcoming causal feel. I think that this pose worked well especially as her conventional direct looking at the camera enhances her strong gaze. From my research I noticed that some images were full length (making it a long shot) and others were more of a medium shot; this gave me a wide choice of which pose to use with no specific guidelines. As this photo was taken in my lounge, I included the skirting board and some of my sofa in the photo therefore leaving me with the challenge of cropping that out. I thought that the photo would look better if it was cut out and left on a white background, therefore I done this using Photoshop. This task was a challenge as there were awkward parts to cut out but I kept with this idea as it fulfilled the conventions of music magazines where the images had been cut out/ taken on a white plain background. 

Written content:
Whilst researching into the language used by music magazines I noticed that different genres need different mode of address. This is due to their target audience society group and their age; for example TOTP is a young teenager magazine therefore the language will have to be child friendly yet it can include slang as these are the people who are likely to abbreviate words e.g. 'you' to 'u'.  A magazine of which is the complete opposite to this is Kerrang! which is a rock magazine which includes artists who are adults meaning that they openly use profanities and the readers will not get offended by them; also their parents have no say in what type of language they use. Overall, across the board of music magazines I can see that the standard mode of address is to include a colloquial tone. I feel that I have successfully managed to do this. Another convention of pop magazines is to use friendly language; this tone will draw readers in, I have a strong example of this in my editor's letter which is situated on my contents page. Due to the younger age range of my target market, I had to make sure that the language was easy to read so that readers could understand it; this meant using simplistic words however I had to get in the balance that it was easy yet interesting and not boring. The use of direct address is also an important key in making the reader feel involved as it makes them feel special that the magazine is speaking specifically to them. I have done this in my strap line of 'your weekly music download' making it seem like the creators of the magazine have gone to all the effort of making this magazine for the benefit and enjoyment of one reader. 
For my double page spread, I had to write the article as if it was coming from the view of the model on the page. This meant I had to look at they general vibe and from that write something that would be believable from her. I used the the stereotype that she is a girl wearing pink therefore she is a girly girl who is friendly and sweet. As well as putting myself in the mind of 'Shona', I also had the role of being an interviewer. I wanted to give the effect that the interviewer was a friendly character who treated the interviewee like a friend. This would make the interviewee feel comfortable and happy to open up; making them feel like that they weren't being exposed during the interview. Furthermore, the informal nature of the interview has the aim that it won't necessarily feel like an interview and more of a casual chat with a friend. 

Front cover:

As this was the first part of my magazine that I made, I had to bear in the mind that the colour scheme I used would be an important factor of the house style. The main colours that I used are white, black, pink and yellow; I feel that this was a good choice because these colours work well together. I feel that white, black and yellow are all colours which could be representative of either gender whereas the use of pink represents girls because this is stereotypically a girls favourite colour. I originally had the background red of which wasn't a convention of magazines so therefore I changed it to white to make it both conventional and to look better. In addition to the colour scheme, the overall look of the cover would play a part in the house style. I followed the conventional layout of being ordered by having my layout looking neat and tidy, by doing this it would make the cover lines much easier to read than if it was messy. I also had to consider how much white space that I would use, I had to get the balance of it not being too empty but not too crammed yet still with sufficient cover lines.  On the cover, the title was the largest piece of text because it is the most important as it needs to stand out so when people are browsing they can easily pick out the magazine. The larger the font is, the more important it is as it is the most eye catching and noticeable. Therefore the more interesting teasers will be bigger and bolder in attempt to draw peoples attention in. The main cover line consists of 'Shona' being in the largest font because this is the part of the line which will attract the audience, when they see the mention of her name they will want to read on. An issue I faced was trying not to cover up too much of the image of the model because otherwise it would look less important and the text would take the role of dominating the page. Therefore I made a mixture of the text overlap the image and some go around the image. My front cover only consists of having one image on the front whereas existing media products contain many more; these don't necessarily have to be of people, they could be of clothes that are featured. 

My strap line which would be featured on each issue is 'your weekly music download' I think that this simplistic line works because it gives the main idea of the magazine in four words. 'Top of the Pops' strap line is 'More gossip! More scandal! More you!' I feel that this title is irreverent to the music scene which is why I crafted my strap line around music. I found that TOTP magazine often has its strap line overlapped by the celebrity's head making it hard to read what it says. I felt that this idea would not work well because it made the strap line unreadable. 

I added a barcode onto my magazine as I felt that it made it look more legitimate, the issue I had with this was with the positioning. From my research I found that the barcodes tended to be situated at the bottom of the page; I also noticed that it didn't have to be portrait, it could also be landscape. As the bar code is not a very nice looking/appealing feature I wanted it to make it look discrete and try to blend it in so that it didn't look out of place. I think that I have managed to blend it in with the use of my colour scheme containing black and white; I also can't see a better place where it could fit in. Here are some examples of covers which I have used in order to get some inspiration so I could follow the conventions. I feel that I have used a wide range of conventions therefore making my magazine fit in well with the genre. 

 

Contents page:

To enhance the house style I made sure that I followed the colour scheme by having a conventional white background with pink, black and yellow included as well as some text in red which is taken from the background of the cover. The layout of the contents would have to be neat and ordered in order to follow the house style from the cover, of which it does. I like the use of boxes where the categories of the contents are, I have also used boxes on the cover. By putting the information in boxes it makes the page easy to navigate and people can easily skim quickly through the articles that they are interested in. In these boxes I made the actual described content to be short and snappy so that people get the jist of the article without giving all the article away. I am happy with the outcome of the overall general layout because I feel that it looks suitable to be a professional contents page. Also I made the page numbers of the content in a different colour and larger font to make it stand out and be seen more clearly. A convention from pop magazines that I have used is the fun design elements, the various shapes make the page look more creative and interesting. However I feel wary about these incase they look too childish and inappropriate. The editor's letter is signed off with the conventional handwritten font so it looks more personal. The use of the 'x' (a kiss) makes the reader feel welcomed by this friendly gesture. The use of bold highlights the importance of the readers and the strong welcome to the magazine they receive. Despite me using two images on the contents; in TOTP there are always at least 4, these aren't always people, they can be accessories. 

Compared to Top of the Pops magazine the similarities that I have which make my magazine look like a conventional pop magazine is the fact that the page is clearly labelled as a contents page. Another convention is the content being organised into labelled boxes of which are al the same colour with the page numbers being in a different colour to the short and snappy content. I used the technique of making the important page numbers being in a larger font therefore showing its importance. Furthermore both contents pages include a white background; I feel that this gives it a sophisticated look. I feel happy that I have successfully used enough conventions in my media product to make it look like it fits in with the current market. However, on my product I did not include the small detail of a page number. I included a editor's letter which is not in this magazine.

Compared to We Love Pop magazine, the similarities I have are that I have included an editor's letter which is signed off in a handwritten font with a kiss to end it off. I have included the convention of making the page numbers larger to make them stand out and be seen more easily. Furthermore, I have used design elements similar to those used on this page to advertise 'hot posters'. This magazine uses a different layout as there is only one box of content whereas the other content is displayed by the use of an image; there are 16 images in total. I do not like this layout as I feel that it doesn't look like a contents page whereas I feel that my media product is easily recognisable as a contents page. 

Double page spread:

I continued the house style onto my DPS by having the colour scheme to include white, black, pink and yellow. I followed the conventions by including pull quotes which were situated near to where I got the quote from. I used the text wrap tool in order to get the columns to wrap round my pull quote. I used the conventional white background and had the questions in a different colour to the answers to that they could be easily recognisable. In addition, I included page numbers and the magazines website so that people would know which magazine they were reading. Another convention that I used was the invisible margin which enables the page to look more spacious and not so crammed. I used my research in TOTP magazine in order to determine a set layout. Personally I feel that my DPS is my best and favourite part of the magazine because it looks more professional and elegant than the rest. I like the layout of the page, including the use of columns going across both pages of which I got inspiration from looking at this existing double page spread:

From this existing DPS article, I got the idea of having the main image on the second page but right next to where it would be cut in half. I tried and liked this idea, however I decided to keep it to the side.