1. In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Question 1
2. If I compare my music magazine front with other professional music magazine front covers then I have to look at both the similarities and differences between them.
3. Similarities One of the similarities are that both of them have a title. They both have main coverlines and other additional sell lines. They both have the date of when they’re issued They both have a barcode and a retailing selling price. They both have a website where a digital version of the entire magazine can be viewed. There is a small range of colours used in the colours scheme. The background used on both of the front covers is quite simple as the audience should mainly focus on the front cover artist with the cover line along with the additional sell lines. The costumes used for the models are very simple and it relates to the genre which is R&B. Both models are engaging with audience by making eye contact with the camera, and this is known as direct address.
4. Differences One of the differences is that the name of the magazine has two words “Da beat” whereas “VIBE” a professional magazine has only one word in the name. The name of the magazine that I created has an outer glow, this was done so that my target audience would notice the name of my magazine. VIBE doesn’t have an outer glow to its name but they still attract their target audience by using a very bright colour (yellow). Vibe has used a gradient tool (In photoshop) to make their background, we can see this because the background goes light blue from the center and dark blue outwards. Whereas my background is plain and has only one colour (black). The differences make my magazine stand out from my rivals, which also challenge the stereotypical music magazine front cover.
5. The article By comparing my article with a article from a professional magazine I can see that I have used my text on both pages whereas the professional magazine has used only half the page for their text, secondly nearly the whole image is on one page. My model is in between the two pages he is in the center, which suggest that this article is about him as he is the center of attention. Looking at the background of the professional article I can see that they have a simple colour (white) whereas I have combined both black and white in my background using the gradient tool in Adobe Photoshop CS4. The professional article makes the font stand out from the background and I have done the same by using white and red colours for the font.
6. Conclusion My magazines has similar conventions as the professional magazines. In my magazine there are sell lines, title, headings, images which you would expect to see in a real magazine. For my article I wrote the interview with the main person, and I have differentiated the questions from the answers by giving them both different a font colour.
