In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

Front Cover, Contents Page

Double Page Spread

My products have all used the conventions of real media products to good effect. I decided not to challenge the forms and conventions of real media products because I felt if I did this, it would not appeal to my target audience. Also, conventions help us identify the form or genre of a product so this is another reason why I have used the conventions of rock magazines. On my front cover, I have used all of the conventions such as, a masthead, plug, sell lines, footer, main image, barcode, date, price, feature stories. On my contents page, I have used the masthead, subheadings, feature stories, date, main image, smaller images.

Masthead – My masthead is in a black, scruffy font as this is a common feature of rock magazines. I have placed it behind my artist as this is also a convention.

Plug – Plugs feature in most covers and are used to advertise things like competitions or free gifts. I have used it to advertise a free poster.

Barcode – Barcodes are used to identify each issue and are seen on every product.

Price – How much it costsFooter – This goes at the bottom and usually has band names or more feature stories listed

Main Image – The main image is usually a medium close up of the main feature artist.

Main Feature story – All magazines have main stories – these feature as the cover. I have used big text and boxes to make it clear who the main feature is.

Other feature stories – magazines generally have smaller stories featured on the cover so the consumer knows what's inside. I have used a range of bands etc as my other features and used different colours and effects on them.

Masthead – contents pages always feature the masthead for consistency.

Contents/page numbers – These tell my readers where they can find certain stories etc.

Subscription offer – I have added a subscription offer because these are commonly found on contents pages and are an incentive to the reader.

Main Image – The main image is always the artist who featured on the cover. They are the main feature story.

Subheadings – The subheadings make it easier for the reader to find certain types of things like reviews or news.

Band Index – The band index can be useful to the reader because it tells them where they can find the band they like.

Date – Date of publication, commonly featured on contents pages.

Main feature story – The main feature story is the biggest story on the contents page and is a similar photo to the front cover.

Masthead – The masthead usually features on the DP spread to keep continuity throughout the magazine.

Subheading – A subheading such as 'Feature' at the top of the page helps link the DP spread and contents page together because this page is listed under “Features' on the contents page

Artist name – As this is an article about an artist, their name has to be featured on the page in a large font.

Tagline – Main feature stories usually have a tagline to give a taste of what the article is about – mine is here again to keep continuity.

Article – Articles in music magazines tend to be in this format – drop cap, and thin columns. The articles are usually Q&A's, news stories etc.

Pull quotes – These are very conventional on DP spreads and are usually situated in the middle of the main body of text, in a large font to make them eye-catching.

Main image – the featured artist is always used as the main image for obvious reasons. Here, my artist is wearing the same clothes as he has throughout my magazine to keep continuity. The lighting is also the same, but the pose is different. This pose makes him look more confident and charismatic because it is like he is opening himself up, pushing his chest out etc

Page numbers – These are used to help the reader identify the story and they obviously correspond to the contents page numbers.

My product Real product

My product Real product

My product

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