Evaluation

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

Front Cover

MastheadThe similarities of my masthead compared to Kerrang!’s are a conventional idea of having the main subject placed over the top of the masthead, covering some of the lettering, in this case, not as much as Kerrang! As my magazine only features one person on the front cover. I decided to use an exclamation mark at the end of the magazine name, as I think it makes the masthead stand out more, representing the genre of the magazine, which is similar to Kerrang!.

My masthead

Kerrang!’s masthead

Sell lines

My sell lines

Kerrang!’s sell lines

My sell lines have both used and challenged feautures of Kerrang!. I like the way that other rock/indie magazines used bold boxes around certain pieces of text on the sell lines, I think that this gives the magazine more of an edgier feel, creating a sense of the genre. I have used the same idea for my magazine, but decided to use blocks behind all of the writing, mix matching the colours, Kerrang has only done this for the subheadings.

Buzzword

My buzzword

Kerrang!’s buzzword

I have tried to use similar conventions to my buzzword as Kerrang! have. By putting the word ‘plus’ in capital letters and having an exclamation mark on the end, I think the buzzwords look similar, but have been challenged by the names of the bands featured next to it, Kerrang!’s stands out more due to the colour scheme and layout, i tried to use the same layout on mine by having a plus sign after each name.

Contents

ImagesNME image

Kerrang! image

My image

All three images are very similar, they all have some sort of border around the outside, and are all the same shape. Another similarity is the page number of their feature is places on top of the picture, along with either the band name or some sort of quote. I think that my image is a mixture of both Kerrang! And NME, partly Kerrang! Because Zaid (right) is looking away from the camera, looking more serious, but more like NME, as Billy (left) is looking towards the camera.

TextMy text

NME’s text

I have used and challenged NME’s style of writing on the contents page, I have used the idea of the page numbers being on the left hand side, and also being a different colour to the feautures, another convention that I have used is having a line after the number, I think this makes the contents page look a bit more full. NME have used a different font and size for the heading and sub heading, which is something I have challenged, by having all of my text the same size.

Double page

Images

My imagesKerrang!’s images

My images have mainly challenged Kerrang!’s. I took the idea of having pictures overlapping each other a bit, and having them very close together, but kept the idea that I would have colour and not black and white, as my magazine is more feminine than a magazine like Kerrang! Even if it is the same genre. I decided to only use four pictures on my double page spread, because I wanted to feature more text in the double page.

ColumnsMy columns

Kerrang!’s columns

Most magazines having all columns the same length and same width, which is why my magazine is quite similar to Kerrang!’s. We have both challenged the convention, and have different width columns. Another similarity between the two magazines are that the questions are in a different colour to the answers, which is quite conventional in all magazines.