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

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

I designed my products in a particular way so that there is a strong use of continuity throughout. By looking at magazines such as Vibe and NME for inspiration I wanted to create a house style in order for my magazine to look professional and conventional. 

I created the continuity but adding similar texts such as my Lil'Red artist title to both pages of my magazine. I also did this featuring an artist in my magazine called Abbie. To follow continuity I made her name in the same font on the contents page as the cover page. I have followed the text throughout all three areas of the magazine. 

Aswell as text I have used a house style, this is shown through my use of colour. Apart from the competitions and small bits of highlighted text I have used red, white and black as my main colour scheme. This was because of my choice of outfit for my model, the makeup I used on my model and my inspirations of lady gaga's outfits. By studying magazines of my genre I look at things like how to produce a good photo, add blurbs and adding screamers to emphasise the expression of text. I applied these features to my work by adding things such as exclamation marks on my WIN! features. 

I have checked things like the page numbers of my magazine. I noticed in other magazines that conventionally the page numbers were allocated in a certain order, for example; the double page spread would not be put right at the beginning of the magazine, this would be seen later in the edition. For this reason I chose my page numbers to be 14 and 15 for my double page spread in order to make it look conventional to an existing magazine. 

By looking at existing examples of magazines like these;

I know how to set out a layout for a cover page, contents page and double page spread. I took my images of my model for my cover page bearing in mind that I have learnt the cover lines are conventionally put in the first third of the cover. This helped me understand how to compose my images well and produce a good final piece, my images are; 

The contact sheet shows how I did this. In order to fit one or two cover lines in the right third I positioned my model so that her shoulder was touching the right hand side of the cover image. I used this idea but changed my design by adding a plug in the right third instead of a cover line, I did this because it was near to my date and price line; this is eye catching for the audience and will encourage them to read further about the competitions. 





I used a medium close up of my model as this is the most common to use in a magazine. I learnt to understand what is needed for a magazine as I demonstrated this on my blog late 2012. This is demonstrated to the left. The amount of magazines that have a medium close up on the front cover is alot more than a close up or long shot due to the fact the eye contact engages the audience into reading the magazine. A medium close up allows the reader to see most of the models outfit and their face into detail.
I used a conventional issue number for my magazine cover underneath the headline to indicate to the public how many magazines have been produced from Plugged. 

I find that my contents page is my least favourite. I found this most difficult to construct in the style I wanted to portray. Conventionally I have added pictures on my contents page, these have page numbers on the corner of them to show the audience what they are looking at to co-inside with the artist titles etc. These are then showing the audience where to find the story they want to read quickly and easily. I added the Plugged headline that was featured on the cover of the magazine to the contents page, this is common in magazines however unconventionally I placed this at the top of the page in the middle, this was because it brings back the name of the magazine therefore it re-establishes this to the target audience. I put in my contents page an advertisement/plug inviting my audience to buy a years subscription for £24.00, this would be so that people can get it posted to their door without having to travel out and look for a distributor of the magazine. This would work particularly well for students who are at university and don't have money to travel, they would only have to purchase a one of payment. I used the same font throughout my contents page yet allocated the artists in the images their own title fonts. I also used a bold font on top of my features that states "On The Cover" to give abit more information on what the double page spread is going to be. 
Unconventional factors of my contents page are things like the page numbers of each feature. I have put the numbers at the end of each bit of information. This is so that they can read the information before deciding what page they want to visit to read more. I used a graphic at the bottom of the column that I duplicated on Photoshop CS5 so I could fill these in, in yellow and red. This is so that the colour stands out against the house style provided. This was my WIN feature which I applied screamers to so that it shows the importance of the competition and what they can win. This is featured in magazines such as Vibe and Company magazine. 

The double page spread imagery I used has been manipulated in order to follow usual conventions. I didn't like the images I took for my double page spread because of the top banner I wanted to put into it. Therefore I took an image from the portrait session and manipulated her hood into the picture. 

My double page spread also consists of an interview, to make this look conventional and professional like a normal magazine I added Q. and A. (question and answer) letters before each section. This is then showing the audience exactly which part they are reading. A main feature of magazines in adding a pull quote into the article. This is a selected amount of text that is made bigger within the writing to draw the reader in. I used the words "I never expected to become recognised" as my pull quote as the article is all about how my model has become a star in the last year. I used big names such as Usher to influence the reader as people like to know the latest news about celebrities. 
I added a social network column to the right hand side of the text on the double page spread. This consists of the link information so that the public can write about the article they have read. I have seen alot of social network icons and QR codes when looking at magazines, for example NME has one and GirlTalk also does. These are great and becoming very conventional for magazines to have. The use of the banner on the top of my double page spread isn't really conventional as I haven't seen this myself on any magazine I've read nevertheless I tried it in experimentation and liked the look of it. I wanted to do two versions on the banner on photoshop, one in red and one in white. This is to co-inside with my house style and model. I had my model wear a white collar so as a conventional feature I used white to interpret that. I added a background colour of red and lowered the opacity to a soft pink in Photoshop CS5 therefore it looked like a wash on the background. The box of writing is 'wrapped text' so that the writing wraps around the image I have on the double page spread. I created this in publisher so that I could follow the normal conventions of a magazine.