Evaluation Question 1

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

What I have produced so far, as in my front cover, contents page and double page spread I feel was a good attempt of trying challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazines, however I don't feel that I developed my work enough to be at a standard where it could be gone to bed. Though in this post I compare my final product with a various of Hip Hop magazines that inspired me and helped me to progress during this task, as well as pointing out the odd risks I took at trying to be different in order for my magazine to have a unique appeal.  

Front Cover

I'm going to compare my final product to existing well known magazines in the industry, using each aspect of the front cover, contents page and spread and show how I incorporated these elements in my own.

This is the masthead for my cover 'Vybz' and for 'Vibe' magazine. During my research and production of my magazine cover 'Vibe' has been a inspiration to me and I like alot of the elements of the magazine, especially the simplistic layout, which I to be more acttractive to an audience then too much going on because it can confuse the reader.

I used a sans serif font because its a convention on covers, so that the masthead stands out to the reader. The font I choose to use was Impact  because I knew it was a bold type font and would stand out on the cover.

I felt it was important to have the key image over lapping on top of the masthead, a I noticed during my research all of the key images overlapped. I think this is to show how the audience will know the title of the magazine, therefore they can take risks and cover the masthead, I used this element but I restricted from covering too much of the character Y because of the fact that this is a new magazine and you won't be able to see the Y which is in a different font to the rest of the word.

The key image for both magazine have an attractive looking female, they are both Hip Hop magazines and having an appealing woman on the front attracts the opposite sex to the magazine known as gaze theory. The pose in both of the magazines is seductive and I actually photographed my model to do the same pose as the model in 'KING' magazine because I liked how it fit in with the genre as the females both look strong as well as sexy.

Strapline from 'The Source'

Straplines from 'Vybz'

The straplines from 'The Source' & 'Vibe' helped me to understand how important distance between each strapline matters, as it inicates to the reader that there is a new story. The weight of the text, font and colour, varies according to the importance of each story.

Strapline (1) from 'Vibe'

The lead is also important to be established and normally is the key image of the cover so that the reades pick up quickly who the lead will be targeted at. For example, the cover for 'The Source' you can see game is in Bold bright red and he is the key image. I used this convention in my own cover with the 'Estelle Cooper'. 

Strapline (2) from 'Vibe

The 'Vibe' magazine strapline I like because the colours stand out which is why I choose to use a pastel colour (yellow) and the pink which compliments the models dress.

The artist line up is at the bottom of my magazine and it was at the bottom of the magazine 'Rap Up' which is above but it is not conventional to be at the bottom but I choose to put mine at the bottom because the bottom of my page was bare. The font isn't really the same as the one in 'Rap Up' this definately shows how I didn't really refer back to my research during production of the line up. However, the fact I used a line up is a convention because all Hip Hop magazine that I reasearched before the development stage incorporated a line up of artists.

Contents Page

 

The masthead for 'Vibe' is similar to my one 'Vybz' because I liked to V and the layout of the contents I chose to portray on my own was different and I think more effective because instead of overlapping it is slanted in a position so that it compliments the direction of the V charcater.

The colour of the font had to be pink so it would go with the house style of the overall magazine layout, which is mainly pink in this edition. I also put effects on the 'conents' so that it wil stand out to the readers.

The contents page on the left is from Hip Hop/Rap magazine 'XXL' the middle is from my Hip Hop magazine 'Vybz' and the one on the right is from 'Kerrang'.

I incorporated elements mostly from 'Kerrang' magazine because there were a lot of different images going on. Although, having multiple images on the contents page was not a convention in my genre magazine, which you can see in my research. However I wanted to use that idea so that my contents page wouldn't look limited.

The colour coded images with the story on the contents text I feel will help the readers be able to identify which story is in each catergory and the pagintaion is laid out in a way that readers will be able to understand.

Double Page Spread

The double page spread for my magazine 'Vybz' is more like an interview, whereas the on of 'Lily Allen 'is an article from the music magazine 'NME'.

Similarites are the quotes from the artists, though, 'Lily Allen's' is more a headline and the one in my magazine is just like a sub-heading. The headline for my spread is above the mug shot of the artist and in bright pink like on the cover of the magazine indictated it is the lead.

The font of the copy is in roman a serif font beacause it is a convention to have the copy inside a magazine as roman. The questions are in a different colour to the reported response, to allow the reader to recognize the difference between the question and response from the artist.

The introduction is bold so that the reader can notice it and if they are interested by the headline they will then read the introduction to get a sense of what the main body text will be about.