The student created a magazine cover and contents page that draws from conventions of real media products. Key similarities to an existing magazine include a masthead, cover lines, barcode, and logo placement. Differences include using a student subject posing and looking away rather than a musician flexing. Photoshop was used to manipulate images and give a more polished look. InDesign allowed for a simple contents page layout. Overall, the project drew from real magazines while putting its own student-focused spin.

1. Preliminary Task
Shamas Ali

2. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
Front Page Similarities
Masthead
Main
Image
Cover lines
Coloured
background
and similar
colours are
used for
fonts (black,
white and
red)
Barcode
Logo

3. Title Differences
The student I have chosen
appears to be posing, crossed
arms with a smile. He is also
looking away giving an effect
he is aiming for something
whereas Trey Songz has a
mean look on his face and is
flexing off his body.
The title I have used is
not as big as the title
‘VIBE’ have used, I have
also used a sub heading
however ‘VIBE’ has not.
Although the
backgrounds are both
coloured, I have used the
back of an office to
create a more student
feel. ‘VIBE’ has used a
mosaic black background,
this draws more focus to
Trey Songz thus drawing
in the intended audience
even more.
‘VIBE’ has a picture of the
previous magazine on the
front.

4. Both titles have the
same format of text
which is bold writing.
Pages go up in two
Both magazines
have 3 pictures

5. Standard colour is
used for the font
however my one has
an eye catching
appearance.
The contents they
have used is similar
to that of Google,
this can bore the
reader as most
people can identify
the theme. However I
have used contrasting
colours which is less
likely to bore readers.
I have used a grey
background as opposed
to the white one ‘Half
Court’ have used as it
makes the writing stand
out more.

6. I have learnt a lot about technology throughout constructing this product, I
have learnt how to use a camera properly. I have also learnt about adobe
Photoshop and how I can use its services to manipulate my images and texts. I
also used In Design to make my contents page, this was quite easy to use as the
contents page I wanted was quite simplistic.

7. When taking pictures for my magazine cover I was looking for
someone who looked like the could represent the college
justly. I found this in a student called Hassan, throughout all
the pictures I took I loved the way his pose seemed to look.
He was looking to the side, this was somewhat portraying he
is looking towards something, aiming towards something, as
we all are in in college!
My use of Adobe Photoshop was also important as it help me to
give my image more an overall and pleasing effect to the customer.
As you can see in the picture above it is light and not very pleasant
on the eye, whereas when I gave it some levels and made it slightly
darker it looks exactly what a magazine cover should look like. I also
cropped out the top as the picture was originally too big, I also
zoomed in closer taking away the door from the picture.

8. When using In Design for my contents page the word
simplistic sprang to my mind. I kept it really simple by
using a dark grey background to make the writing on
the page stand out more, I also added three images.
The artistic picture was essentially a really bad picture
of a student but after playing about a bit I realised that
I had made something similar to a digital art picture, I
then added to my contents page to give it another
dimension and it is also something different from a
normal picture. Maybe I should have used a different
colour for my background as the colour grey is kind of
dull.