This document summarizes a media product created for a nature channel targeted at children ages 5-12. The product draws from conventions of both nature channels like Animal Planet and children's websites. It has a clear layout with program information and navigation like TV channel sites. It also includes show previews, activities, and a parents' page like children's websites. However, it challenges conventions by using a colorful, eye-catching background unlike most plain-colored websites. Brightly colored ads and idents are also used to stand out and appeal to children. Overall, the product balances following conventions for usability while also innovating visually to attract its young audience.

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

2. •
Our product conforms to many different conventions of real media
products. As the product is a hybrid of two different types of product
there are many generic conventions that appear.
•
Our product is a Nature channel for Young children, aged 5-12.
There are currently no channels like this but there are many
television shows of this genre.
•
In our research we have used a mixture of the two genre types,
using Nature websites such as Animal Planet, then using Finger Tips
as our children’s website.

3. Here we can see our website homepage. It follows the
conventions that many other websites use. Below are the ITV
and Eden homepages. We have a clear layout with
information about programmes that are on the channel as well
as an easy to navigate menu at the top of the page
Clear Menu and
Programme image

4. Like many TV channel websites we included previews for our show
SKYE about a dog travelling the world. We included a link to the
40 second preview where you a redirected to the shows page and
the preview can be watched as well some images of the show
This is another convention that we
closely followed. The Challenge
website for example contains show
previews as well as a picture gallery
and a synopsis of the show

5. As our website is catering to children we also followed some
conventions of a children’s website, one such example was the
use of an activities page. We offered children the activities of
Animal based Crosswords and Word searches as well as a
make your own monkey mask template.
This also differs to generic children's websites as they
offer web based games, with little printable “hands on”
activities which many children may like. We have also
attempted to stay educational with our activities so that
it is more appealing to parents too.

6. Unlike many websites we have opted for a very colourful and
eye catching background. Many of the websites that we
researched into had a plain background consisting of only one
colour, we went against this designing with an orange
background and a leaf border created by editing pictures of
leaves into leaf shapes and placing them around the border of
the site. This gives the website a more “natural look” allowing
children to understand the link to nature better.
Whilst ITV player is a more adult site, it
is very bland in appearance and next to
our website it is far less noticeable and
is far less likely to attract the attention of
a child, due to it’s lack of colour.

7. Another convention of a children’s website that we followed was
the creation of a parents page. A parents page is used to inform
parents of what the channel does, it programming and in some
cases internet safety. We closely followed this formula creating
our own parents page telling parents what Herd is about, and
what we aim to do .
As you can see here
we have used a very
similar style for our
parents page and the
Finger tips page.

8. Another part of our product was the creation of two Ancillary
texts, one of which was a magazine advertisement. I designed it
myself and wanted to keep with the bright orange theme and
kept with the use of the Herd logo. I closely followed what is
used in children’s magazines which is bright colours, pictures
and limited amounts of text in order to get the the message of
the advert across
The colourful nature of this advertisement will surely capture the
attention of children and could feature in a prominent children’s
magazine such as National Geographic Kids.

9. Our other Ancillary text was an Ident for the channel. This would
act as the logo for our piece and is seen in the bottom corner of
this presentation. We created it to be bright and easily
recognizable, as well as have links to big cats which many
children like.
Like many Idents/logo’s Herd is very simple and uses
few colours. Its orange and yellow colour scheme is
present throughout all of our products and helps to
promote synergy, very much like Eden and Roar.

10. Overall our products both challenge and follow conventions of
real media text. As our product is for children it uses
conventions of both standard television websites and children’s
websites too.
Our use of bright and eye catching design for our website really
challenges the conventions of a normal television channel
website which really appeals to our target audience.
The simple design used was a convention that we wanted to
follow closely as it does not only look appealing but it will also
help our target audience to use the website as they may have
little experience with a computer.
The use of a video preview was also a convention we followed
as it gives people an indication of what the website and the
channel has to offer. It also gave us the opportunity to show the
Ident off further promoting the Synergy that we want to convey
with the Herd logo.
I believe that we had a balanced use of conventions and
challenging them, and this worked for the best as we had the
simplicity of the website, mixed with the vibrancy and brand
recognition which will appeal to children and make them want to