Media AS question 1

1. Question 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions in real magazines?

2. My masthead is the first convention I decided upon after
deciding the genre for my magazine, R&B. The name of the
magazine is ‘Fusion’ which I picked as the genre R&B is a fusion
of rhythm, blues, and more contemporarily other aspects of
modern beats. The positioning of my masthead is in the top
third, and takes up the entire width of the page. This is highly
conventional, and I thought that this feature was essential
when creating a magazine for the first time as this aspect
makes the product recognisable as a magazine cover page. The
masthead font and body font conform to magazine
conventions, as the masthead is bolder than the rest of the font
– with exception to the main cover line. This is a challenge of
media conventions as usually the masthead font is not
repeated on the cover. While I am aware this is a challenge to
conventions, I did not think the main cover line stood out
enough from the others when in the same font, and I did not
want to add a 4th font to the magazine as this would overcrowd
the page.

3. A convention of magazines is to have a consistent colour
scheme throughout the whole product. This is true for my
magazine, as I have a turquoise/blue, black and light grey
colour scheme running through the cover, contents, and double
page spread. The usual colour scheme for magazines similar to
my genre is red and black, but I think this connotes more of a
rap genre, which is not exactly my theme.

4. The main image uses iconography, as the girl in the photo is wearing Bose
headphones, professional recording equipment. She is centred on the cover and
is making eye contact with the camera, direct dress, which is an important
convention in magazine covers as it engages with the consumer. Another
challenge to conventions of R&B magazines is that the person in my cover is a
girl, which is less common than having a male cover artist. The costume used is
less overwhelming than usual R&B magazines, as there is not any heavy
jewellery but the costume and makeup is symbolic of the R&B genre, for
example, 90’S sportswear brands. The lighting used was dissimilar to that of
professional music magazines due to lack of access to professional facilities yet I
kept the lighting neutral so it was easier to edit afterward in Photoshop. The
setting was in a way conventional, as most magazine shoots are conducted in
studios. While mine was not, I aimed to make the background look either like a
studio, or easy to edit away the background to look like a studio.

5. Slogans are commonly used as a unique selling point to sell the
magazine and entice a reader. My slogan, “Music on a higher
level” elevates my magazine over others, as its slogan makes its
music content seem superior.
In most of the magazines I viewed they have had the main
cover lines on the left hand side. I challenge this vague
convention as mine is on the right, yet my cover page is not
unbalanced as the side without cover lines includes single artist
names, a convention within magazines such as VIBE.
Puffs are designed to stand apart from the magazine, as if they
are stuck on. Due to my puff following the colour scheme of
the magazine I feel my puff challenges the convention that it
should be differently coloured, or foreign to the magazine. In
result this makes my puff less stand out than others magazines.
My skyline doesn’t challenge any conventions as its black and
white, contains the same font as the slogan, and obviously it is
positioned directly at the top of the top third, along the top of
the coverpage.

6. The DPS feature in my magazine also challenges
this convention as the title of the article and
singers name is in the same font. This to me
makes the singer look significant and important
as their name is in the same don’t as the
magazine name. The layout of my magazine DPS
follows media conventions as it is in columns,
had pull quotes and text wrap around an image.
It differs from several other DPS as it doesn’t
have a whole page dedicated to the main image
but is not an entirely new feature.