Evaluation Question 1In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Front Cover – Clothing and Props

On most occasions, when artists do a photo shoot for a music magazine, they will have specific props e.g. Watches and certain clothes to wear. I followed this trend as I had also asked my model to wear ‘bling’. However, only a subtle amount as this is a RnB magazine. My magazine follows the convention as does the front cover on the right. We can see the artist wear very few jewellery apart from a necklace and a watch. I had set my artist out to look slightly tough but also humble. This is why I opted out of using sunglasses so the audience could see the models eyes. The models clothing also makes him look tough. He has his sleeves up and the jacket is very manly.

Front Cover - MastheadIn a RnB music magazine, the

mastheads typography is usually blocked letters with very little colour to make it look strong. However, with my masthead I have gone for the opposite, I have a lot of colour and have a soft font. This is to stand out from the crowd. We had initially thought that it would be difficult for it to look like a RnB magazine, however the name of our magazine makes it very apparent. From the three shown on this page, my masthead stands out the most because of its colour and originality. I disagree with the typical RnB masthead and feel it has worked in my favour.

Front Cover – Direct Address

For my music magazine I had chosen to have my model looking straight at the camera when taking the picture (direct address). This is to immediately create a relationship between the artist and my audience. I had gone for the conventional RnB theme as the vast majority of the music magazines of this genre, have their artist looking into the camera and thus at the reader. Example shown on the right.

Front Cover - PuffThe increase in competition on

the music industry means it is imperative that a puff is added in to my music magazine. The puff is the thing that sums up your music magazine in to one sentence. The puff is the way in which a music magazine sells it self and rakes in the audience. In order to increase the sales of my magazine and make it look like it is the best of its kind, I had to include a puff which is what I had done.

Front Cover – Colour SchemeNormally the colour scheme

would be no more than three colours. Therefore I have also chosen three – red, black and blue. The colour scheme is a way for your audience to identify your brand. It also makes the music magazine look more attractive. RnB magazines use very light colours and not too dark and dull. Although I have chosen Black as a colour, I feel the blue and red balance it out and I have got a good mix of colours. I have taken the conventional colours into thought and also integrating some dark colours into my magazine as I have chosen a navy blue colour rather than a sky blue colour.

Double Page Spread – ImageA growing trend for music

magazines is to have the image of the artist as the background as well. I have used this technique in my double page spread. Using this technique makes a simple but effective layout. It also draws the audiences attention to the background image. The conventional way to lay this out is to have it in columns like newspapers, however I felt this would be too similar to other magazines and wanted mine to stand out.