Media Evaluation Questions.

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

When i first began to create my media products, i decided to analyse 3 other magazine's front page, contents page and double-page spread. By doing this i was able to use some ideas and have a basic knowledge of where i would begin constructing my pages.

Front Page.

When doing my front page i analysed the other music magazines front pages such as Q, NME and MixMag, when doing this Q and NME both used the same convention of one main artist/band on the front cover. This is what i decided to by using one main artist it would put the main focus on them. My front page is similar to the Q front cover, i chose this idea because having just the one main artist on the page i think is more effective for the reader because there is less to concentrate on and they know what is to be featured inside the magazine. I challenged the convention here because instead of using a long shot shot photo for the image, i used a close-up. I chose to use the close up because out off all the photo's i thought this photo would of been the most effective because of the good i contact from the artist and also the intimating look, and the dark colors makes us focus more on her pale face.

Other conventions i stuck to having were, a puff, the bar code in the corners of the page and in most other magazines we see the text is at the bottom below the image, i decide to follow these conventions because the space was suitable and they would fit perfect. Also having the text at the bottom creates a main focus too, and the bar code in the top right corner is out of the way and un-able to see.

I used text on the side of the page which is seen on other music magazines, but i had developed that convention a little further by adding a bit more text and forming a 'Band Index', but instead of just having it in a boring white box, it would not fit in with the theme of my front page, so i decide to add black slashed lines to put more detail into the 'Rough and edgy' look.

Another convention i decide to challenge because i thought it would have more of an effect on the audience as every other music magazine follows this. It was to place the title of my magazine down the left hand side of the magazine, i decided that this would be suitable for the name of my magazine, as it was a long name that i would be best suited down the left side. As i trusted my own instinct to do this, i think it worked well and having the title of the magazine and is very effective because it allows more room to focus on the main image.

Contents Page

For my contents page i followed the simple convention of having a color scheme involved in all of my media products. The continuity of my color scheme is done throughout all the pages, this would be done in real music magazines, for example Q follows the red, white and black them throughout all of the pages.

Another convention i followed is the use of other images, on my contents page i used other images on the page, i choose to use this because it then shows the readers of the magazine what else is inside the magazine and makes them more intrigued to find out about these images. I used the idea from contents page i analysed on mixmag, but just developed some of the conventions further by using other conventions of other music magazines. For example on the mixmag contents the text of the stories that will be featured is boring, but i used the idea of having a black bar and adding white text over the top for titles which is what you see most commonly in other magazines.

In most contents on music magazines, wee see just block color backgrounds which i choose to use in following this convention, by having this it allows the audience to focus on the images and all the text with out things being to complicated as it would of been with a patterned background.

Double page Spread

After analysing three different double page spreads i was able to see the conventions of what a double page spread would consist of having.

On all double page spread, they have a page number and a website so you can look up the story and see it for yourself, i have added these to my double page spread. Also before the main story of the text, we have a little introduction to see what the story is about. Another one is that again i have followed a color scheme of the red, white and black throughout all of my media products.

Another convention would be the size of my image, when looking at the other magazines, most of the images where large where you could see the whole of the artist in the picture, i have done this but have adapted to this convention because of the angle of the camera, i have positioned it diagonally when most images are straight on the artists/band. Also having the image onto one side and the text on the oposite is very conventional too. Also another convention we see in any kind of magazine, especially music, is when you have a quote in large writing in the middle of the text, this makes it stand out and would be the first thing that the readers would look at, "It will be the same as last time, but better! It's a comeback isn't it?" This is a little preview of what the interview is about and automatically draws in the reader, this is something you would see everywhere in any kind of magazine and is populary used.

I used some of my ideas from the NME double page spread i chose to anayse as i thought it would be more helpfull, but then i adapted some conventions like the masterhead also, the postion of objects like the other images on the page.

I think for my double page spread i followed all of the conventions for it, as i thought it would be the most complex one of the three because of the images and text and positioning. In doing so i think my final product looks smart, realistic and professional.