Evaluation question one

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

My media product is a music magazine, I have designed and made my own front cover, contents page and double page spread. I done research into the conventions of exiting music magazines to help inspire me to create my own product. From doing this I have been able to use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products. However I have tried to make my magazine as different as possible from other music magazines. Despite this I have still kept many of the conventional features of magazine this is because I still want my target audience to be familiar with my media product.

The conventional features that I have taken from other media products include, the page size, pug, barcode, issue number, bold fonts and main eye catching images.

The first convention that I followed was the page size A4 which is a width of 21cm and a height of 27.9cm. I had to use this so that my magazine would look realistic and recognisable to the audience.

Whilst I was doing my reseach into existing music magazines I noticed that each one used a masthead, main image and taglines. I also used all these features in my media product as this would help to target the right audience and give them an indication of what my magazine included.

On my front cover I have used a pug which is a very conventional addition to magazine covers. They are used to highlight special offers and key features within the magazine. The convention is to have a colourful pug with the appearance of a sticker applied.

I have developed the idea by making my pug bright red and adding a shadow underneath so it stands out more than other music magazine pugs. I made my pug by simply drawing a red circle, writing the words 'festival line-ups: the insider tip-offs p.12' and then adding a shadow. I used 3 font sizes to make the best use of the space within the pug. The biggest font size was used to grab attention with smaller sizes giving detail. I got this idea from the magazine 'NME'. I decided to use this pug as I thought it would grab the readers attention and make them feel as if they are getting more for their money as they are getting 'inside tip-offs'.