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

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

2. For different codes and conventions of magazines, I
looked at two different magazines for my case
studies. I looked at Vibe magazine and NME.
The target audience of my magazine are male and
females from ages 16-30. When researching
different target audiences for an r&b and hip hop
magazine Vibes target audience were male and
females from ages 18-34. I wanted to pull my age
down a little because people from the age of sixteen
(most people starting college) are interested in the
music industry and want to know the latest news
and gossip. Vibes press pack states that the race of
the group most likely to buy Vibe were people who
were black or African American (USA). I didn’t want
my magazine to be aimed at once race or ethnicity. I
wanted something to clearly indicate that my
magazine was for all races. I then came up with the
name ‘Diverse’ this clearly states that no matter
what colour you are this magazine is for you.
I liked how the masthead on Vibe magazine was bold but I
didn’t want to make mine as bold as Vibes. NME’s masthead
was also bold but it was a little too small and to the top left
hand side of the page. Taking into consideration these two
mastheads, I decided that I wanted my masthead Red, just like
NME, and I wanted it positioned in at the top of the page from
left to right. I used very simple font of Arial size 117pt without
any effects or shadows. It needed to be straight to the point,
just like the contents provided inside the magazine, simple and
to the point.

3. I liked the layout of Vibe magazine as it seemed
less cluttered to me and there was not too much
on the page. With NME there was a similar
layout with the pull quote being on the left hand
side but I wanted my magazine to look a little
different. On Vibes magazine there was an upper
body shot and the shot type that I took for my
cover was an upper body shot but only with the
top quarter of the models legs showing. My
teasers are positioned on the left hand side of
the page as there was empty space on the left
hand side of the picture.
VIBE
NME
My magazine
If my magazine was to be sold at a supermarket, other magazines
would be placed ¾ of the way in. Therefore, the teasers would be
seen and it would be easily caught but the intended user’s eye.
With my case studies, the magazines have teasers written about the
image. I didn’t want my writing to be above my image apart from
my pull quote, therefore I chose to leave and empty space when I
was photographing them, and I have written my teasers in the
space provided. I have used a very similar font style to Vibes
magazine with the ‘and’ as the symbol ‘&’ and also with the words
quite close to each other. I felt that my magazine was then given a
sophisticated and less cluttered feel. I chose to stick to a 3 colour,
colour scheme. I chose red, yellow and white. I chose these colours
as they are quite vivid and easily seen by readers and they don’t
take the attention away from the models. I highlighted the most
important parts of the writing on the cover in yellow so that it
stands out and they are the words most remembered so the user
knows what they are paying for.

4. For the picture on the cover I wanted an image that
represents two people uniting in the music industry. I
wanted to use two models, one male and one female. This
is to show that the magazine if for both men and women. I
made sure that the both looked into the camera (direct
mode of address) so that they build that type of emodels ye
contact with the audience. My male model is looking
straight into the camera and so is my female model
however I told my model to place her head slightly to the
side, this shows that she joined him in his musical journey
and they both made it big together.
The barcode on my magazine was best suited to the lower left
hand corner as that’s where there was enough empty space for
the barcode and price to fit. Vibe magazine is £3.95 with 90
pages. It is a reasonable price as it is distributed 6 times a year.
NME magazine is £2.20 and it is distributed every week. I
wanted my magazine to be a suitable price for the amount of
pages I was providing and taking into context the people who
would be purchasing my magazine. I decided to price my
magazine at £3.99 with a total of 74 pages for this particular
issue and for it to be distributed once every month.

5. For my contents page, I wanted to use 5 different images. Most of them were
of different models as I wanted to emphasize the different stories being
covered in the magazine but along with that I wanted to add a picture of a
musical instrument. I done this because I didn’t want the audience to think the
most important thing was the models or artists, so I added that image to make
sure that readers understand making music does not only mean having a good
voice. In the two magazines that I analysed the contents pages were both on a
single page. I wanted to change mine around. I created my contents page on a
double page. I felt that by doing this I had more space to layout the words and
images and it would be clearer to read because on vibe magazine the writing
on the contents page was quite small and a little hard to read at times. I stuck
to the same colour scheme of red yellow and white and once again I made
sure to highlight the most important words in yellow. In most magazines on
the contents page there is a ‘regulars’ and ‘featured’ section. I added this on
my magazine too and made sure that the suitable content was provided. On all
magazines a larger section of the contents page is provided for the main cover
story. On my contents page I made sure that my cover story was clearly visible
so therefore I made my image of my two models larger than the rest of the
images on the page.
For the journalism of the
contents page I chose to stick
to medium lexis. I didn’t want
the magazine to have any slang
words in the contents page as
that was the introduction and I
wanted it to stay professional.

6. The image I used for my DPS was almost a full body shot
For my DPS the journalism is
without the feet showing. The image represents the two
quite informal and some
words are in slang. This is
models having a laugh and enjoying themselves. My cover line
because it is an r&b and hip
states that they both have had global success. The image
hop magazine as journalism represents them being on top of the world and being happy. I
as such is very common as
wanted the image to be on the left hand side of the page just
the intended audience are
very comfortable with it and like NME magazine. I think that dedicating a whole page to the
artist is important because it shows that they are equally
they can understand it.
important as the journalism. Vibe magazines DPS was two
images on a double page. I didn’t want to do that so I followed
a similar style to NMEs. I wanted my journalism to follow a
question and answer style as I think that it is the most
appropriate and very easily understandable. I also chose the
same colour scheme to keep my magazine consistent. Just like
almost every magazine there is a pull quote which has an
important part of the journalism in a larger font. I wanted my
pull quote to be on the left page just about the image, this is
the quite that the reader will read first and gain a little
knowledge of what they will read.