1. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions
of a real media product?
I have conformed to many conventions of existing music magazines, for example using a 3 colour scheme
throughout the magazine, which aids in adding continuity. My chosen colour scheme was red, white, and black
and I used this throughout. Conventionally, magazines only use 3 colours as using too many could make the
magazine look too gaudy and unprofessional and I feel my chosen three colours look effective and fit in well with
my indie themed magazine. My front cover model, Dylan, was included on the front page, contents, and double
page spread to signify his importance to the magazine and emphasises the fact he is the main focus of this
particular issue. By not including him on the contents and DPS and just on the cover would make the magazine
lack consistency and not show his importance. In terms of fonts, I have used a selection of fonts throughout my
magazine however I have maintained a clear, bold font for subtitles and the mast head, and the same font is used
for the feature stories in my contents page again to add consistency. Consistency and continuity is extremely
important when producing a magazine as it gives it the professional feel that all magazines need in order to be
successful. I have carried out a conventions analysis on all three of my products to explore these factors.

2. MAST HEAD: My mast head is placed conventionally on the front cover,
as it is at the top of the cover and is the largest text on the page. Mastheads
are usually in a large bold text, which mine is, and is placed about the main
image. I used a bold colour that contrasts with the plain background to make
the masthead stand out more and make it the most noticeable thing on the
page, as well as the image. Often, the mastheads are capitalized, which
makes them stand out more which I also chose to do, and by using an iconic
text that is associated with the magazine makes it more identifiable to the
consumer when on a shelf in a shop. I decided against using an acronym like
my model magazine NME as I felt that my title was not long enough to be in
need of one and is snappy enough as it is.
MAIN IMAGE: Like other magazines, my image is placed in the centre of
the magazine, with the feature stories surrounding it. My model is looking
directly into the audience which again is conventional as it catches the eye of
the customer and encourages them to purchase it and gives them a sense of
connection with the cover star. The model’s costume conforms to my colour
scheme (red, white and black). The main image is large and central, and this
identifies their significance to the issue.
COLOUR SCHEME: All magazines have a colour scheme, as it adds
continuity and consistency to the magazine and is an extremely important
factor. I chose to follow the 3 colour rule of white, black, and red and
everything on this cover is on one of those three colours. My artist’s name is
in black and contrasts with the white background, which makes it stand out
more and the feature stories are all in black and red.
FEATURE STORIES: Conventionally the main story always appears on in
the centre of the cover, spanning over the main image of the artist it
features. I also chose to conform to this convention and make my feature
stories surround the main image using the came colour system as the main
story however made them smaller than the main stories which shows their
lesser significance. The artists name is the biggest thing on the cover and is
easily readable on a shelf, with the pull quote slightly smaller underneath
which again is very common on all magazines.

3. PLUG: The plug of my magazine is ‘FREE POSTERS’ however unlike
most magazines, it’s not particularly big and is accompanied by no
secondary images of the posters inside, which I think would have been a
good addition to the cover. The plugs are designed to draw readers
in, especially by advertising stuff as ‘FREE’ which immediately entices
readers.
FOOTER: Footers are positioned at the bottom of the page and
usually stretch across the whole page. They usually advertise what else
is included in the magazine and in music magazines it is usually
additional artists, which I chose to conform to. Having a wide selection
of artists on the cover gives the potential customer a good idea of who
is included in the magazine without having to buy it and they are more
likely to purchase the magazine even if they only see a couple of artists
they like on the cover.
BARCODE: Barcodes are usually positioned in the bottom right of the
magazine and accompanied by the date and price of the magazine and I
included all these features on my cover in the conventional position.
This is useful for the reader as if the price is placed in the conventional
place its very easy for them to see the price immediately if they know
where to look.

4. TITLE OF MAGAZINE: Usually, the magazines title is repeated
again at the top of the contents page, which adds continuity to the
magazine. However, I chose to just include the ‘M’ out of ‘MAVERICK’
which could become iconic and is always related to the magazine.
Instead of just having ‘CONTENTS’ written at the top of page, I decided
to have ‘THIS WEEK’ instead, which is similar to NME. This gives my
magazine a slightly younger vibe which relates back to my target
audience
MAIN STORY: The main story of the magazine is usually
accompanied with an image of the person the story is relating to, which
I have done on my contents page. Breaking usual conventions, I didn’t
include a brief description of what the story would entail, as I feel this
would encourage people to read the whole magazine. I used a different
image of my model for the contents page to add variety
LAYOUT: My layout is typical of a contents page, and I chose to use
NME to model my page on. The features are all in columns, which is
conventional of a contents page. By having the page numbers in line it
makes it easier for the reader to quickly see what page number the
stories they want to see are on and access them quickly. It follows the
same three colour rule as the rest of the magazine and this aids it in
adding continuity and by using sub-headings it makes is easier to identify
what story would come under each category.
DATE AND ISSUE NUMBER: The date and issue number is
positioned underneath the mast-head which is conventional of a
magazine. Although the date is also on the cover, it let’s the reader
quickly identify what issue they are reading and whether the magazine is
up to date or not and lets the reader see whether they have missed an
issue or not.
FEATURE STORIES: The feature stories are positioned to the right
of the contents page and each story is accompanied by a brief sentence
stating what the story is about. They are positioned in conventional
columns, which makes them stand out more and easier to see what
category they fall under. They are accompanied with clear page numbers
so it is easier for the reader to immediately see what page the story is
on for easy access.

5. BAND INDEX: I modelled my contents page on NME, and a
conventional aspect of their contents is a band index. In NME. The
band index is always on the left of the page, and gives a list of what
bands are mentioned in the magazine and what page they are on. I
decided to adopt this convention in my magazine and chose to set it
out similarly as NME.
FOOTER: Many magazine have a ‘PLUS’ feature at the bottom of
the page, which advertises even more content. I adapted this to my
magazine, by including an extra feature story which I also
accompanied with secondary images. I included one of these footers
as its very conventional of magazines and allowed me to have even
more stories in my magazine.
OTHER FEATURES: Conforming to my target audience of young
people, I have included social network links on my contents page.
Especially now, social networks dominate and nearly every single
media product will have links to their social networking sites on their
magazines. I also included a QR code, as most smartphones have a
QR scanner which once scanned a code, takes the reader to exclusive
content. Again, these codes now appear in most magazines and are
starting to become conventional.

6. PULL QUOTE: Usually on DPS when a celebrity is being
interviewed, the masthead is a quote ‘pulled’ from the text. This
is used as it pulls the reader into reading the article, and gives
them an insight into what the interview is about. Usually, the
pull quote is quite ambiguous and can be taken in several
different ways, the readers are intrigued and read on. Another
convention of the pull quotes is that is spans across both pages,
which I chose to do in my article. It emphasises the importance
of the quote and makes the page look full, even if the story is
short.
MAIN IMAGE: Usually, the model is looking directly into
the camera (direct address) which pulls the reader into the
article and so they feel a sense of connection with the celebrity.
The image usually takes up a full page, which I chose to do as
this signifies Dylan’s importance to the issue. His clothes also
conform to my colour scheme (red, white and black) which is
very conventional of a DPS.
TEXT: The text is positioned in conventional columns, which is
conventional of all magazines and other media printed products.
It allows for more text to fit the page, look neater and be clear
and easy to read and follow. The text is plain and simple which
makes it easier to read, which is needed in a magazine. Certain
quotes from the article have been alarged and made bold to
make them stand out more from the text, and these interesting
quotes encourage the readers to read the whole article. Key
names in the article (Dylan and Jake Bugg) have been put into
italics and coloured in red to show their importance.
STAND FIRST: Stand firsts are used at the start of the article,
giving a brief introduction to what the article is about and what
it concerns. These are conventional of DPS as it allows the
readers to see what theyre about to read. Often they end on
ellipses which encourages the reader to read on, however I
ended mine on a cliff hanger type sentence instead, which is
conventional of a stand first.

7. DROP CAP: Drop caps are usually put at the start of an article
and is an enlarged first letter. They are eye-catching as it is the first
thing the reader see when they read the article, and makes it
stand out. They are very conventional to magazines but I
challenged this convention by placing my drop cap in the stand
first and not the main article.
PAGE NUMBER AND MASTHEAD: All pages in
magazines are numbered to allow for readers to use the contents
page to easily access the pages they want to see. I coloured my
page numbers in red which added continuity to the magazine, but
also accompanied the page number with the magazine website.
Also, at the top of the page, I inserted the ‘M’ from the ‘Maverick’
masthead, as the magazine’s masthead are usually printed small
on every page to add consistency. I also included an ‘exclusive’
banner which many magazines do to emphasise the fact the story
is unique to them.

8. Continuity
I created continuity throughout my magazine, which is extremely important when creating a media product. In order
to maintain this consistency, I used similar fonts throughout my magazine although not all the same, which added
variety while still keeping the continuity. My colour scheme of red, black and white remained throughout the entirety
of my product, as it ties all the pages together and fit in really well with my genre. I also made sure my model’s
costume matched this colour scheme also. Another way of ensuring consistency was making sure the page numbers
advertised on the contents and features actually matched my article, which made the magazine more professional
and likely to actually appear on a magazine rack for sale. The same model was also used on the front cover, contents
page and DPS which adds continuity, as its very unlikely on a real magazine that the main artist that is featured on the
cover does not appear on the contents and is the topic of the main article. The lay out of all three products conform
to the majority of conventions of usual magazines, as this is extremely important and I explored this in my
conventions analysis.