1. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
In my magazine I wanted to use some of the existing conventions of magazines such as NME and q
as this is key to attracting buyers. However I also wanted to produce a magazine that was unique.
This will be presented in the work I have done such as the layout, contents and images used to make
my magazine.
Title
The title I have chosen has both developed and challenged existing productions. It has challenged it
in the way that most music magazines from the genre i chose have initials e.gQ and NME. I
challenged this as I wanted to show readers what my magazine was really about by using the title I
did ‘bass’ this gives an insight to the buyer that my magazine produces because if i used initials then
buyer may not know what the magazine is about. However my magazine followed the conventions
of existing productions as some indie magazines also have a longer name for example uncut and
mojo.
Font and Style
I wanted to use a font that was fit into the magazine throughout as well as being similar to NME. The
fonts I chose elephant, gill sans MT condensed and berlins sans. By using these fonts it made my
masthead bold and attractable to the audience.
I also noticed that red is the colour used on many indie magazines as red has connotations of
dominance. Red brings text and images to the foreground. As this is the reason I chose a dark red so
that the reader could easily identify the genre as well as being a bit different and making my
magazine stand out from the rest because when doing my research I never seen any others with
dark red the majority were red.
Costume
The most common buyers for music magazines are 13-25 and is male dominated. I wanted to appeal
to the biggest audience so my model is wearing clothing that a male audience can associate to so
that the magazine will sell more copy’s.
Lighting
I tried to create an artificial lighting that did not produce shadows, but wanted to keep it as natural
as possible so that it was true to existing magazines.
Eye contact - I felt that it was very important to follow conventions and to make sure that my model
had direct eye contact with the camera. This is important because in a music magazine, the eye
contact creates a relationship between the reader and the artist.
Body language
There is provocative action shown on my cover which follows conventions which can be seen on
some magazines e.g. Cheryl Cole Q Magazine cover

2. Props
I used a prop of an acoustic guitar to use with my second model on my contents page, I did as it
would be common to use an acoustic guitar in an indie magazine as that’s the style of music my
magazine is. As well as on my other image on my contents page my other model was sat speaking
into a mic in a recording studio.
Contents Page
My magazine contents page is more of a more straight forward lay out as this follows the
conventions of magazines such as Q as these Layouts are more simplistic so that the reader can
easily see what they are reading. My magazine has a more organised layout in comparison to
magazines such as NME and Kerrang as I felt this will appeal more to a wider market that may have
been 'put off' by hectic design of some music magazines.
Like existing publications I had to make sure that there was same style throughout my magazine
therefore I ensured that on my contents colour were the same. I used the same font style in the
banner of the contents page as the front cover and the same font to ensure this.
Double Page Spread
As seen in other music magazine I did an interview with my artist which I turned into an article about
the artist so that it creates a more personalised relationship between the reader and the artist.
Similarly to other double page spread I used a large quotation that was intended to be somewhat
controversial as it encourages the audience to read the whole article.
I also included a small summary at the top of the article to give the reader an insight into what the
article is going to be about.
However I went against conventions as I had no text on the left hand side of the page, usually the
artist's name is featured here or the summary yet I wanted the left hand side to purely concentrate
on the image.
I developed existing conventions as the photographic image on the cover presents the artist as a
strong, with lots of attitude.