The document discusses how the media product challenges conventions of real magazines. It aims to be unconventional through its written content, images of models showing unusual emotions, effects added to images, and layout with sketches. While some conventions are followed like interviews and contents pages, the goal is to attract an audience that sees themselves as "outcasts" through the alternative music genre featured. Influences are taken from singers in this genre to represent them in the magazine.

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

2. TITLES

3. WRITTENCONTENTI feel that the written content is the one part of the magazine that is most similar to popular convention; the main double-page spread follows the typical ‘Question and Answer’ interview routine with the ‘celebrity’. I also feel that while the dialogue in the interview from ‘Lainey’ is correct considering her ‘persona’, I do not think that any of the interviews is particularly individual or unique. However, I attempted to imitate the tone of a typical interview here and I think that, to some degree, I was fairly successful. I also attempted to incorporate words such as ‘exclusively’ in order to promote how unique and unconventional Original! is supposed to be.

4. PEOPLEI chose for my models to display expressions such as anger and shock in order to truly create an unconventional set of pages for my magazine.I also chose to create an effect upon the model’s jacket; firstly I used the ‘Magnetic Lasso’ tool to select the jacket before selecting the ‘Stained Glass’ option. I did this because while I know that typically magazine images are airbrushed, they do not often simply contain artistic effects. Ifelt that therefore, this would cause the image to stand out in an unconventional way.Overall, I used a total of four various models. Although I chose models that all looked completely different, I feel that my target audience of both genders was not approached in these images. Additionally, because I used only female models, this could be seen as a feature of a conventional magazine; typically models who look like the target audience will be chosen in order to appeal to the reader.

5. CONTENTS PAGEI wanted to merge the front-page with the contents page by giving the appearance of the page details The contents page is both similar and dissimilar to a typical contents page in different ways - while it follows the normal idea of projecting the original front cover page onto the contents page, it chooses to display the annotation surrounding the page in a very unconventional manner.I chose to use effects on the added shapes in order to further the intentional idea of breaking typical magazine conventions – by adding detail to the shapes, this distracts the reader’s attention from the content. Typically, magazines will not use shapes in order to keep the reader’s attention on the articles.I remedied this issue by only adding this detail to the page of the main coverline.I think that small details such as the contrast between various images seriously affected the overall effect of the contents page, which can clearly be seen in the images below. While the image on the left finally features a musical instrument, the colour balance of the picture is highlighted even further by the blue colour scheme of the page.

6. MISE-EN-SCENE OF IMAGESExamples of Information Regarding the CoverlineI presented the page number, images and the tagline all together in order to clarify that all of the information is relevant to the coverline.Page BorderI set the images against the border deliberately in order to give the impression that the particular article is completely filled with information.Integration of Various Shapes and InformationI used stock shapes from Microsoft Word in order to add detail to the coverline/tagline and to present the information in a ‘fun’, artistic manner. I have picked this particular frame as I feel that it presents the information in a manner that is modern, co-ordinated and a blend of various styles, in terms of fonts and the colour range. I feel that this is how I should have set out the rest of the magazine pages.I think that this frame displays my intentions towards breaking typical magazine conventions and so I presented it in aneye-catching yet sensible manner.

7. COSTUME AND PROPSIn terms of props, I feel that I should have done more. While I had access to musical instruments such as guitars and pianos, I did not use these resources and so did not make the point of the magazine being focused on music clear enough. For instance, While this could be seen as focusing on the personalities creating the music, I think that this has just made the magazine seem unfocused and pointless.As the only image with a “prop” is of bad quality, this severely diminishes the overall effect.For instance, these music magazines follow convention and display instruments typical to their specific genre. As shown on the left, the classical music magazine displays a violinist, whereas the front cover on the right shows a guitarist.This is particularly where I feel that it would have been a good idea to follow typical music magazine convention and to have featured perhaps a trademark instrument for the band/artist.

8. LAYOUTI decided to drastically differ from the normal conventions when I was creating the actual layout of my magazine – given that the magazine is meant to be ‘alternative’, I decided to create a background to the pages that was eye-catching and incorporated artistic techniques. Therefore, while I decided to use a standard layout for all of my created pages, I added small sketches onto the pages to give the magazine the effect of being more personal and therefore providing an idea that the reader could emphasise with.By adding these small details, I thought that this would break typical conventions of having a plain white/coloured background, as can be seen in the example to the left.

9. MUSIC GENREI decided to create an entirely unconventional music magazine by featuring a particular genre that it usually sub-categorised; alternative electro music. I challenged typical conventions by adding further detail such as music notes and similar notation to the borders of the pages, as can be seen on the example on the right.I incorporated typical conventions and brands into the magazine by featuring the competition to win the ‘Retro iPod’. By describing the iPod as ‘retro’, I am choosing to differ from typical convention, but the brand name ‘iPod’ is typical considering that it is being featured in a music magazine.unusual and alternative instruments. I did this as I felt that using such instruments would confuse the reader as to why the magazine was labelled a ‘music’ magazine when it featured unusual and untypical concepts.I also followed typical music magazine conventions by using standard instruments, even though I had access to

10. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

11. I feel that my media product represents the social groups seen as ‘outcasts’ in that the genre challenges the typical convention of music magazines featuring mainly pop and hip-hop artists by focusing on alternative music. I focused very hard on presenting my magazine in a manner that, while it does not distract the reader by straying too much from the norm, has outcasts’ in that the genre challenges the typical convention of music magazines featuring mainly pop and hip-hop artists by focusing on alternative music. I focused very hard on presenting my magazine in a manner that, while it does not distract the reader by straying too much from the norm, has small details on the page that a typical music magazine would not. In terms of influences that I used for images of artists in my magazine, I decided to study singers in the alternative genre and use certain concepts from them. For instance, my original shots of ‘Lacey’ [Emma Whitehand] merged ideas from the singers Hayley Williams and Imogen Heap, which can be seen in the images given as examples on the right.In these shots of ‘Lacey’, I wanted to give the readers the impression of a celebrity who is wanting to be out of the spotlight. I felt that this in itself challenged the typical convention of a pop magazine, where the bands generally talk about fame as being a ‘gift’. I wanted to represent the basic idea of the article in the image, so the posture of the model was very important. The lighting of the model was also something that I took influence from these two shots for. I decided to use a standard overhead white-light, but used natural light to balance out the shot face-on. I used this combination as it meant that while the contrast between the paleness of the model’s face and the darkness of the hood was over-exaggerated, the model’s features were still clearly visible.

12. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

16. Who would be the audience for your media product?

17. My target audience was primarily the female audience in the 15-25 age brackets, although I wanted the magazine to appeal to both genders and a variety of ages. In terms of design and format, I would say that the target audience definitely affected the layout, due to the fact that I added in the “sketches” in the background because of the patterns in the target reader’s clothing. Because of the attention to detail, I felt that my magazine should reflect this, while not drawing away from the musical content.

18. How did you attract/address your audience?

19. I would say that my magazine has a relevant link to the magazine Alternative Press in terms of genre and layout. However, I incorporated features from magazines such as Vogue as the target audience is mainly intended forfemales and I felt that the addition of small details such as various fonts and background textures helped to improve the overall quality of the images.In terms of the layout for the articles, I wanted to integrate the two conflicting genres that both Vogue and Alternative Press belonged to, so I created an article that looked both stylistic and unconventional.

20. Regarding the genre of the magazine, I followed the conventions of creating bands with unusual names and a particularly interesting history, due to the fact that I knew that many bands in the alternative/rock/electronic genre struggled to break into the music industry, which mainly supports the mainstream genre.FOR INSTANCEI created bands such as “Fool’s Gold”, “Snicket” and “The Rattlesnakes” following the influence of magazines such as NME, which features artists such as “Kid Koala” and “Tune Artists”Other particular conventions that I followed were especially linked to the creation of the character of “Lainey”. The double-page article featuring “Lainey” also contained many popular conventions concerning the genre – for instance, the photograph of the character strongly resembles that of the singer Anna Calvi. The two images are shown below.

21. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

22. I used Adobe Photoshop primarily for the creation of my magazine pages as it had the editing capacity to both create, edit and save the pages.I used Microsoft Word mainly as a word processor, but I also used the Custom Shapes in order to create things such as lines, boxes and frames.

23. Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

24. In terms of positive aspects of the task overall, I think that my double-page spread is probably my favourite out of all of the pages. However, I also think that it is seriously lacking in factors such as relevant content, i.e, mentions of topics referring to the specific musical genre. I also feel that some areas of the page were over-detailed, causing the piece to fail overall. I feel that I have disappointed myself in creating the full magazine pages – my pages from the preliminary task are far stronger and I was much more confident in my ability to create unique, detailed pages. I have learned that firsthand preparation leads to stronger pieces of work and that missing out on important tasks such as taking photographs at the photoshoot leads to an inability to focus on tasks later on when these images are clearly needed.