Evaluation - Question 1

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

My media product uses the conventions of real media products in many different ways. I began my main task by researching music magazines and analysing them. Doing this emphasised what I liked about the music magazines, what I would then plan my magazine to be like and what was a common feature of the magazines. I could therefore use the conventions of real media products to create a music magazine that is likely to be sold in the market.

I already had a basic idea of what I wanted my magazine to be like, for example I decided the genre of magazine was going to be RnB based because there are not many currently in the market. My main inspiration for my music magazine was VIBE and BLENDER because of there style and target market. So my final magazine was inspired by them. This will be shown by the comparisons to my magazine, however there were a few other magazines with features that I have have adapted.

Here is why I have chosen to use three features on my front cover and what magazines inspired me to do so.

My Front Page...

Three features on my front page were created from other real media products. I really liked these conventions and thought they were great features for the front page of a magazine because they were decorative and would catch the readers attention.

These three features were:

- The white background

- The quote on the front

- The decorative bar at the bottom

The White Background...

I chose to make the background of my magazine white. After doing some research I found that this was very common for music magazines. For example, the magazine below, Vibe and Blender. They both have white backgrounds, which makes the title seem much bolder because of the contrast in colours. I also thought that using white for the background, it would open up my choice of colours to go on top.Therefore the black and red writing was clear to see and easy to read.

The Quote on the Front...

I chose to put a quote on the front of my music magazine because I think this is an excellent feature to draw in the attention of a potential reader. Both of the magazines below have quotes which are positioned along side the magazines front page music artist. The font size is quite big so that it is bold enough to be seen by the reader from a distance.They are also in bright colours which again will do the same and lure the reader into reading the magazine because of the article inside.

The Decorative Bar...
The decorative bar is at the bottom of my music magazine front cover. I have written a few of the artists name that feature inside the magazine. This design feature is used to attract the reader so that they would buy the magazine because of what is inside. The decorative bar is also a feature on the two magazines below. The box is one block of colour making it more defined and bold.

The Title of the Magazine...

To choose the title of the magazine, I created a table of ideas which were then proposed to people of my target market who then decided which title they prefered. The choices that I thought of were:

As you can see from the table, the chosen title was Staged. I had decided that the main article in my magazine would always be about new artists that were succeeding. Therefore performing and doing their tours, involving being on stage. This made me think that once an artist had becoming scouted and heading for the limelight they would become Staged.

I found searching for the font easy because I knew that all magazine titles were a bold clear font that was quite basic. However, I wanted my title to have a 3D effect and to look as if it was coming off of the page to make it easier to see and a big feature of the front cover. Which is why I decided on using the font Dollis.

As I had decided to have a white background, the title needed to be a bright colour which would be eye catching to the reader. After looking at previous magazine conventions I noticed that red was a common colour used. Therefore red was going to be the main colour featured throughout my magazine and a part of the house style.

The Colour Red

The colour red features on the front cover of both these magazines. It is extremely effective because the colour is bright, bold and eye-catching from a distance.

I decided to position the title across the top of the magazine because of the font size being large it took up the entire width. The word itself was too long to have been in a smaller font however.

My Model...

The look of my model was based mostly on the female solo artist Cheryl Cole. My model herself has a very similar facial look to Cheryl Cole so this is what inspired me. Also she is known to have a great female fashion sense and people aspire to be like her. I decided to have her hair long, down and slightly wavy as worn many of times by Cheryl Cole which is shown in the pictures below.

I also decided to dress my model in a fur coat because they were very commonly worn by well known celebrities and the red lipstick and nails were chosen to match the colour scheme of the magazine.

From my final front page image the mise-en-scene is quite clear, I wanted my model to have a successful look about her but also to be quite fashionable and inspiring person to be like. By basing everything about my image from the pose to her look on a celebrity, it meant that many young girls would be interesting in reading about Rosie.

Music Genre...

The music Genre of my magazine is obviously shown through the image, design and colour scheme, however once that has got the attention of a potential reader the cover lines will then back up the music genre. From the image my target audience is obviously for young females that are fans and interested in young music artists that support the genre of RnB. After doing some research it was obvious to me that there was a gap in the market for this style of magazines where as currently the main genre was rock and indie.