IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR

CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA

PRODUCTS?

Vishal Panwar

Front cover I designed a front cover, contents page and a double

page spread for a music magazine. The genre for my music magazine is R&B and Rap. In my research of existing R&B magazine such as VIBE, I found out that they all consist of darker colours in comparison to pop music magazines. To make my magazine seem much more professional, I also followed this pattern. Commonly the image of the artist was over the masthead, which gave the impression that the magazine is confident in not showing the full name, as people will be aware of it. Furthermore a benefit of this is that, the image of the celebrity is enlarged so it attracts viewers. The image of the artist normally expresses that they have attitude and confidence within themselves. I also followed this pattern; I used a medium close up shot of someone’s face looking straight at the camera. I placed this image over my masthead ‘remix’ which gives the impression that my magazine is confident in its brand. Furthermore the artist on my magazine seems like he has attitude, which is a positive thing for a music magazine.

Front cover General conventions such as the barcode cover lines, and

straplines were all used on my front cover to make it seem more professional. The main cover line on existing music magazines were generally the largest in size compared to the other cover lines, I also followed the pattern. My main cover line was ‘top of his game’ and this was the largest text on the page after the masthead.

Front cover A convention that I challenged was having a coloured

gradient background. Nearly all of the R&B and Rap magazine front convers had a coloured gradient background. However, I wanted my front cover to be original hence I have included a brick wall. The reason why I have included a brick wall is because rappers consider themselves to be tough and rough and their music expresses that. Including a brick wall will suggest that the particular rapper is hard as walls are hard.

Double page spread The double page spread contains a dark background which

is mostly black but the top left of it is slightly dark grey. Having this as a background already challenges the existing double page spreads that I researched as they all had a white background with black text; this made the test stand out on the page as black and white are totally contrasting colours. However, since I was going with the dark colour scheme, I felt it would have been a good idea to make my double page dark too. This makes it seem like that the double page spread belongs to the magazine’s front cover. The text was white so it stood out on the page, and made it easier to read.

One side of each double page spread that I researched was just an image of the artist and the other side was full of text. I followed this pattern, and placed a medium shot of someone sitting down on a chair on the right side and text to go with it on the left side. This made both the pages more organised and easy to understand as there was only one images and text of the left dedicated to it.

Contents page The contents pages I researched consisted of just one

image (which was generally a medium shot) of an artist looking straight at the camera expressing their confidence. I took a medium shot someone standing, wearing sun glasses. The sunglasses express his confidence and make him look cooler which is a positive thing for my music magazine. I kept same colour scheme with my contents page too. I make the image of the artist black and white with the background being black and white too. This can relate to my front cover and double page spread as they also consist of darker colours. To make my contents page seem professional, like existing contents pages I wrote out the heading of the page and developed it a little right under it. This gives the reader a little more information on what is on that particular.