AS – Evaluation- Question 1 In what way does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions?

Robbie Dale

• My media product is a front cover, contents page and double page spread of a music magazine. The genre of music my magazine covers is alternative rock. My magazine is called Revelations.

Before I started making my product, I researched a variety of, similar existing magazines. These magazines were NME, Q and Kerrang. I looked at these to understand the codes and conventions of these music magazines. Zero Tolerance is a very unconventional magazine, so I did not take inspiration from this magazine as much as the others.

• I have stuck to many of the codes and conventions. The front cover uses a large masthead at the top of the page, this is a convention followed by both the magazines I looked at, as it allowed a viewer to see the magazine title when it’s on the shelf. I placed a barcode in the left hand corner of the page with the issue number, date and price above it - this is another common convention, and I recognised in NME, Q and Kerrang. I also placed several cover lines upon the cover, which is a common trait, along with a large headline and strapline, advertising the main story in the magazine. This is a convention used by both the magazines I looked into.

•Using one large image to promote the main article for the magazine I stuck to convention, however while the use of smaller pictures is also utilised on the two magazines, I challenged the conventions by not having them as I thought they would draw attention away from the main story. I didn't want to overwhelm the reader so therefore kept the cover clear of any other images.

My contents page sticks closely to conventions as well. I had the articles numbered which is a common convention. I chose to put two columns on my contents page as this was common practice. There are two images , that of a gig and that of a subscription advert. The images filled the space on the page well and looked professional. Finally, I included a headline, a convention seen in the vast majority of magazines. I did not add in an editorial column even though they are common on contents pages, I did not add one as I found it drew attention away from the main articles.

I stuck to using the same few fonts throughout the magazine to stick to convention and style. This meant that the magazine looked consistent and each page is recognisable as being from the same magazine.

• My double page spread also sticks closely to codes and conventions. My double page spread has a large headline, keeping in line with the conventions of the magazines I looked at while revealing the band the article is about. I separated the article into multiple columns, as was the same in all of the magazines I researched. I used one large image on my double page spread, which took up on of the pages – this is a convention I followed as many magazines only use one page for text while the other is a image about the article. I thought that that article looked effective as it wasn’t overloaded with multiple images. I think sticking to the convention of not using too many pictures worked well here. Like on the contents page I also numbered the pages.

• The only major convention I broke in my double page spread was by not adding a quote from the article anywhere. I found that it did not merge with my article well and therefore left it out. I thought that my opening paragraph, image and headline drew the readers in without the need of the quote. It’s relatively common to see and a moderate convention to break, but I found that it suited my magazine perfectly without one.

The reason I chose to stick to majority of the conventions was that, stylistically, it gave me a magazine that looked professional. The font and pictures were stylised to appeal to my target audience, they would recognise the magazine as being relevant to their age group and preferred music tastes.

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