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

MastheadI believe that my masthead is very conventional, as there are lots of magazines which have letters as their master-head such as; ‘NME’ and ‘Q’ magazine, so I thought that both the name of my magazine ‘M Magazine’ and how I set it out was conventional.

I did however, change my masthead a few times. The first one, (pink) was far too pixelated and it looked cheap and tacky. The second one, didn’t work as I changed my background black so the black M didn’t show up; which is how I got to my third one, of a red M in a red box.

PictureI decided to follow conventions again and only have one image of the front page, this way it tells the audience what is important in the magazine. I decided to go for a close up shot and include more than one person as I was influenced by other magazines such as;

Even though there are other magazines similar to the main picture of mine. I would say that I challenged conventions by my main image as the most conventional kind of front cover picture would be of a singular person.

I changed my picture twice; first of all, I had a white background which I then changed to black, as I thought that it needed to be more professional to follow conventions of other mainstream magazines.

Although you can’t see what they are wearing completely in the image (as it’s a close up shot) I thought carefully about how they were dressed. For example, Amy wore a headband with her hair up and wore eyeliner too, which gave it more of a dressed up feel, whilst similarly Peter was wearing jewellery too, which suited the audience as from my results from find your tribe, I was given ‘trendie’ which reflects on what they are wearing.

Fonts and Colour SchemeThe fonts I used were pretty simple ones. ‘Minion Pro’, ‘TW Cen MT’, ‘Broadway’, ‘Orator Std’ and ‘Perpetua Titling MT’. I used quite a few so that my audience could recognise the difference in things. Such as headings and the main body. All of the main body of my text was TW Cen MT and the majority of the headings were Minion Pro. Then the other fonts came in on the buzz words and pull quotes. Just so that the audience could define the differences. I also started off with a colour scheme of; pink, yellow and grey. Which I soon realised didn’t work in the slightest and it wasn’t conventional at all. I changed this to a more conventional colour scheme of red, white and black. This worked much better and I felt that by following conventions it was easier for my magazine to be created (especially as I was aiming for a mainstream magazine).

Before I had the headlines and the main body the same, it didn’t really have a good enough difference as it does here. I also included ‘Pg.’ before the page number and then changed it to adapt to the conventions of magazines.

Contents PageI included three pictures which is quite conventional. I also did the sub headings how most other magazines do them which again I was influenced by whilst I was doing my research. I also included the master head on my contents page as again many mainstream magazines do this, so I thought that to make my magazine as realistic as possible I should do the same also. I also conventionally included an issue number and the date.

Double Page Spread

I wrote in columns so that it gets the feel of the magazine as if I didn’t then it would just look like a long list, or ordinary paragraphing which wouldn’t have been suitable for a magazine, so by doing this I followed conventions. I also did this, and more so, in my double page spread.

The first columns I did weren’t equal in width, which wasn’t very conventional or professional. I then had to re-do them and make them the same width so I had to develop the convention fully as just having it in columns wouldn’t have been good enough if they were different size columns.

I also included drop capitals, pull quotes and I had used a red D as a back ground for the body text to lie on, which I found was conventional after doing my research.

One of the ways that I challenged conventions was by not having a close up for my double page spread picture. Instead I used a picture from a concert.

However, there were some magazines that I found whilst doing my research that did this too. Which is where I got my idea from. Also just having one picture on one whole side of the double spread is conventional too.

The Headline for My Double Page Spread

I was influence by another double page spread for my headline for my double page spread. I think that I followed conventions as I made it really stand out and it was obvious to the reader what it was.

Other Conventions on My Double Page Spread:

I included two pull quotes, one embedded into the main body and then the other on the left hand side of the double page spread. This is very conventional as most magazines use them when interviews are being done as it drags in the audience and gets their attention. It also makes them want to read on further into it.

Conclusion Overall, I think that I have mainly followed conventions. I developed parts of my magazine into being more conventional after feedback and I also made parts of it intentionally conventional. However there are areas where I went against conventions, like with my picture for my double page spread. The reason the majority of my magazine followed typical conventions is because I was aiming at a mainstream mass audience; they would prefer something that doesn’t go against the norm. Whereas if I was aiming for a niche market I would have most probably challenged more conventions. Also by following conventions it creates verisimilitude: I wanted my magazine to seem as real as possible and following conventions was the way to do this.