In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

With the positioning of the title of my magazine, it was set out in the normal place, meaning that it would easily catch a potential reader’s view if they were looking through a magazine rack for a magazine. Also, the bold red coloured font stands out on the magazine. This has been proven to be a good technique by Kerrang! Magazine. However, a normal convention of a music magazine is for the title of the magazine to be partially covered, however my magazine was newly released, so I did not think that it was suitable for the magazine’s title to be covered as it may potentially effect the amount of people who buy the magazine as they might not be able to see the name. Especially with the connotations of the title ‘Explicit’ if ‘music’ was covered then people would not be too happy with the title of the magazine that they were buying. Also, with the font that I have used for my title, it reflects the generic conventions of a rock/metal music magazine as the fonts of the other magazines that I have researched have got ‘jarred’ or elements missing of their fonts. This could connote the loud music which is featured in the magazine and could be seen as part of a disturbance.My mast head is also conventionally what you would expect from a rock/metal magazine as the size is equally as large as the main artist which is featured within the magazine. Although in Q and NME magazine this is not a convention, it has shown to be a technique used within my genre of music, which is why I chose to adopt that convention within my magazine.

I took the conventions of the contents pages from RockSound and Kerrang to organise the graphology of my piece. This included the layout of the text, how many columns there were and the placement of images and the editors letter. The contents of the magazines that I did my research on were consistent with the box-like graphology. This is shown through the different sections of the contents which are set for the different features within the magazine. Magazines also use the technique of putting the most important double page spreads which have been featured as a jpeg on the contents to advertise what is going to be in the magazine. For my cover I used the conventions from RockSound to create the listings of bands. This is due to RockSound using two columns (which co-ordinates with the rule of thirds) either side of the page and altering the size between the left and right (right being biggest) and the colours also alternating as the list went on. The name of the artist featured on front is mostly on the right of the page covering part of the body of the artist as it helps for the artists name to stand out as people will be drawn to the images and then they shall go down and focus on the name of the artist.The graphology conventions for both pages are generally very cramped with a lot of information on, which represents the music that the magazine is portraying as there is usually a lot going on. I used this technique to fit in with the stereotypical graphology of a music magazine within my genre.

The framing of images of a band for a cover piece has many conventions. One is that the front man (vocalist) is stood in the middle, as they are the most important person in the band (apparently). Another is that the rest of the band form a ‘V’ shape and go back from where the front man is, or they are to bundle around him to create a miniature crowd around them. In order to create the image to look like a normal group photo, the band would have to be standing fairly close together to show that they are a close band, and that they get on well. Choosing my models for my magazine was simple for the front cover as they are genuinely a band, who I follow on twitter. I did not need to style them as I let them wear their own clothes so that they were more comfortable in the images. I have noticed that in the magazines that I have researched that the artists are fairly relaxed with their clothing as I think that they have a free choice of what they want to wear. Also, due to the cover linking to the DPS I wanted it to be a running theme of the band, which meant them looking consistent with their DPS. This is also featured in Kerrang! when they have artists featuring throughout the magazine as it is not a pop genre. As in a pop genre magazine they would dress up and do their make up specially for their article and probably newly released album or upcoming tour. Within the rock/metal genre this is not appropriate in most cases as they do not put on much of a show such as Katy Perry would.

The colour scheme of my project runs throughout the magazine. This is a feature of a Kerrang! Magazine as they have red, yellow and black running throughout the contents and DPS’ within the magazine. However, usually the DPS’ have their own colour scheme, but it is still linked to the colour scheme of the main magazine.The colour scheme is suitable for the target audience as it will fit with both genders and the ages of the target audience. This is something that Kerrang! Does as they have yellow as one of their colours and this connects with the younger audience and it connotes happiness and togetherness, this is also a symbol of the music that I am representing as all of the artists are shown to be respectful of the other musicians and they listen to each other’s music and support each other throughout the music genre of my magazine.I used a semi-monochrome colour scheme as Metal Hammer uses a monochrome colour scheme and it fits in well with the rest of the genre and therefore it would aid the magazine in gaining the readers.