The document compares and contrasts the author's college life magazine with Teen Vogue magazine in terms of their adherence to and challenging of typical magazine conventions and codes. Some similarities between the magazines include including things like a masthead, barcode, cover lines, and main image on the front cover. Differences include things like color scheme, placement of date line, inclusion of a puff or tagline. The author also discusses keeping to conventions for things like layout of contents page while also challenging conventions through things like unique color scheme and number of images used.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of media products? Similarities- front cover
Masthead
Barcode
Similar colours
(e.g. White and
black)
Main cover
line
price
Medium
close up shot
of model
Main
image
Cover lines

2. Differences - front covers
The date line on my
magazine is placed
under Neath the
masthead, however
on teen vogues
magazine the dateline
is place above
masthead
College life
magazine has a
puff on its front
cover.
Has an issue
number
Teen vogue have
made their
magazine cover
lines slanted.
doesn’t follow
usual codes and
conventions
College life has a tag
line.
Main image shows
background
The colour scheme
is darker in college
life magazine. Teen
vogue magazine
has a brighter
colour scheme.

3. I have followed many codes and conventions while
producing my magazine. I have made a masthead which
stands out to the audience as it is white and it is shown in
bold font. This follows usual codes and conventions as all
magazines front cover have a bold masthead. I have also
included a main image. This follows the generic codes and
conventions as generally magazine producers put a model
on the front cover of their magazine. I have used a tagline,
as I want the target audience to always remember the
tagline as it catchy and this will lead to many people
knowing about the magazine. I have used cover lines to let
the target audience know what generally is going to be
included in the magazine. This follows codes and
conventions as most magazine have cover lines as they
want to give their audience an insight into the magazine.
Also, I have a main cover line, this tells the audience what
is the main headline/story in this magazine. A main cover
line is usually used in magazines to let the audience know
what the main article is going to be based upon. I have
used a puff, as I want it to catch the audiences eye and as I
want them to know about this important information. A
puff draws attention and promotes a certain element in
the magazine.

4. The differences that I have picked out from comparing college
life magazine to teen vogue is that I have included, colour
scheme, unaligned text, puff, issue number, tag line and date
line. Firstly, I have picked out a standard colour scheme for my
magazine as I didn't want it to be bright and obnoxious which
would irritate many students that will read this magazine. I
chose primary colours. Whereas teen vogue choose pink white
and black which shows us that its towards a certain gender,
woman, and that it is a different genre of magazine. Teen vogue
have used slanted text which doesn't go with the usual codes
and conventions as all the text is supposed to be aligned. I have
included a puff so that it catches the audiences attention and
they get to know the important information inside the puff
however, Teen vogue haven't included a puff. This doesn't
mean Teen vogue are breaking the codes and conventions as
including a puff on the front cover is optional. College life
magazine has an issue number include on the front cover
whereas teen vogue does not. Teen vogue must be a very well
known brand for it to be breaking codes and convention as
magazines usually include an issue number. College life
magazine has a tag line, however Teen vogue does not. Teen
vogue isn't breaking codes and conventions as a tag line is
optional not every magazine brand uses it. College life goes
with the usual codes and conventions. Both college life and
Teen vogue have included a date line but they have placed it in
different places. College life has placed it under the masthead
where it is usually placed according to magazines codes and
conventions. However, Teen Vogue have placed it above the
masthead which breaks codes and conventions. However, Teen
Vogue can afford to break generic codes and conventions as
they are a big and well known brand.

5. These are images of my drawn draft front cover
and my actual student magazine front cover. As
you can see I have made a few change but for the
most part I wanted my drawn draft to be quite
similar to the final product. I used yellow on both
images to highlight my puff. As it shows
importance. Also, I used the colour red on my
main cover line to show that it was the main
article in my magazine. Also, I have based my
cover lines off my ideas that were written on the
drawn drafts. The main image was going to be a
medium close up and however I couldn't figure
out how to crop it down even more without the
image getting blurry. Next time I will figure out
how to crop the image properly. The colour of the
masthead is different as the colour purple looked
too bright and obnoxious in the final piece. I have
included the barcode and the price the same way
I did on the drawn drafts. I have kept the tagline
the same as I didn't want to make any drastic
changes to my magazine.

6. Similarities- Contents page
masthead
Contents
title
puff
picture
Page
reference
Selective
colour
scheme
Rule of thirds
Rule of thirds

7. Differences- contents page
Different
colour
scheme
No
introduction
as to who the
producer of
the magazine
is.
Only one image on the contents
page. Whereas college life has three
Has
subheadings
More information on each of the
content on each page
Anchorage: images are
anchored with text.

8. I have followed codes and conventions of a
magazine. I have included: masthead, contents title,
puff, rule of thirds, page numbers and images.
Firstly, I have included a masthead this follows usual
codes and conventions as most magazine have their
masthead on the contents page. This is so the
reader is reminded of what magazine they are
reading. I have added a puff, which isn't necessary,
but this follows the codes and conventions of a
magazine. This puff is telling the students important
information about the magazine. Also, I have used
rule of thirds which helped me align my text and
not go out of the lines. This helped me structure my
contents page. This follows usual codes and
conventions as magazine producers usually use rule
of thirds to help them align text and images so that
the contents page does not look messy. Rule of
thirds helped me find hotspots. I have included
page numbers on the contents page as it is generic
and that is where the audience looks for article
page numbers. Page numbers are very important as
they guide the audience around the magazine. I
have used images as it will catch the audiences
attention and the images are anchored with text. To
let the reader know what the image is about.

9. The differences that I have picked out are: colour
scheme, subheadings, only one images on contents
page, more text needs to be added. I have
challenged usual magazine codes and conventions as
the colour scheme of my magazine does not match
my chosen magazine. However, every magazine has a
different colour scheme but many magazine do not
have background colour. I have challenged this and
made it more unique. Also, I have not included
subheadings. This can draw back people from buying
my magazine as they have no sub headings to
navigate them around the contents page. However, I
have not written much text on my contents page so I
had thought sub headings were unnecessary as there
isn't much text anyways. However, Marie Claire have
only put one image on their contents page whereas I
have included three. They are challenging generic
codes and conventions and they can afford to as they
are a well known brand. Also, I have not added a lot
of text whereas usual contents pages add quite a lot
of text. I have done this as I didn't want my contents
page to look over crowded and for the readers not to
get confused as to where they should look.

10. I have kept my drawn drafts of my contents page and my actual
contents page very similar. I have added page numbers the
same way I had drawn them out however, I had to change one
of the numbers due to the fact that there is no page 1 in a
magazine. I have placed the puff, contents title and masthead in
the exact same places as the drawn drafts. I have done this as
these are the generic place where the puff, contents title and
masthead belong. I have placed an image of the producer of the
magazine and an introduction next to the image, the same way
as I did on the drawn drafts. However, on the drawn drafts I
included a dateline under the masthead but in the actual
contents page I forgot to include the dateline. I will remember
next to not forget the dateline. I have used a completely
different colour scheme to the one on the drawn drafts. This is
because the colour scheme on the drawn drafts is too childish
for my target audience. In addition, on the drawn draft I have
only included one image however, in the actual contents page I
have included three images and I have them anchored. This is
an improvement that I have made from drawing the drawn
drafts.