This document evaluates how the student's media product uses and challenges conventions of real music magazines. The student aimed to follow conventions through masthead design, realistic images, costumes, layouts and more while also making some original design choices. Overall, the student felt they balanced following conventions with some creative challenges to conventions.

1. Evaluation
By Rachel Ta

2. Qu1) - In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?

3. Title/Masthead

4. • Those were conventions of masthead from actually music magazine. One of them
was the one I designed.
• CURVE was my masthead!
• Looking at research from the start of front covers and looking at mastheads has
given me ideas and has helped me design my own masthead.
• MOJO and VIBE has influenced me a lot in my own design because I wanted to
keep it looking conventional and clear. For the colour of my masthead, I wanted to
keep it simple and bold rather than a magazine like ‘Billboard’ with lots of colours.
MOJO and VIBE are both bold and clear to the reader which is the look I wanted to
go for, it also made it easy for recognition for the readers. Most mastheads I
looked at were 3 dimensional so I wanted to follow the same conventions. I didn’t
want to put a black/shadow to it because I wanted to make it original so I decided
to put grey which is a lighter way to make the white stand out.
• I had trouble with the cut out of my letters but eventually found a way to do it. I
thought me doing the cut-outs was creative and make my masthead, really unique.
• I think my masthead turned out well (even with all the hassle) and the style and
colour hit my target audience. It created a bold effect but also challenging
conventions with my own style.

5. Mise en scène of images
• The images I used for my magazine was a school stage and outside on a
field. The stage made it look realistic and followed conventions because
the artist are preforming live. By taking the pictures while they were
playing made it look more realistic.
• The images for my front cover and double page spread reflected the genre
of the magazine which is pop/indie. The content page images attract both
males and females because I’ve used 2 pictures which are mixed genders.
• I used a variety of camera angles and shots to capture different emotions
and used the natural light (sun). For my front cover I used a close mid-shot
to create a statement and attract the reader which follows conventions of
music magazines. The image for my double page spread is looking away;
this conveys the artist having thoughts of her own and not thoughts of the
media. It shows that this artist is real just like everybody else and has
insecurities and not just fame. This challenges music magazine but also
follow conventions.
• I did slightly edit them on Photoshop.

7. Costumes and Props
• The costumes I used for my
Photoshop were pop/indie
clothing, the clothing is important
because it reflects the genre of the
magazine which would attract the
audience. A number of props were
used in the making of my magazine.
There was equipment like guitars to
give a realistic feel to the photos. The
costumes followed conventions for
this particular genre but also
unconventionally to other magazines.
Magazines can use clothing to express
a genre which is an advantage to
magazines.
• For my front over and double page
spread, a prop used which is
unconventional is Dr. Dre Beats however
still follows because I have linked it to
the competition that you could win.

8. People
• Altogether I used a mix of males and females which are all young adults
and teenagers. This targets my magazine to a younger audience which is
what I am aiming for. I have mixed my genders to my magazine but males
are shown more because of the band ‘The Charlie Vaughans’. The Charlie
Vaughans are young adults which show young artist and their goals. This
creates prosumers for the readers connecting them together. Even though
I have used more males than female, my front cover and my double page
spread is female, this shows that this magazine is not biased.

9. Font and Style
• The fonts I used of my magazine reflect the genre of the magazine. I wanted my
font of my masthead to be original and challenge conventions. I was going to used
‘DaFont’ but it was too pixelated which didn’t look good on my front cover.
However ‘DaFont’ helped me by giving me ideas. I created my own masthead by
using a bold and plain font and cutting out the letters by using white textboxes. It
was time consuming but was worthwhile because my masthead has a big impact.
For each page I thought about how the font creates the genre of the magazine and
followed that throughout.

11. Copy/Written Content
• In my magazine the style of language
reflected on the genre and the age of
the audience which are young adults.
I didn’t want that throughout my
magazine because I want to reach to
a wider audience but I used slang on
my puffs. If I used slang throughout it
would have limited my audience. If I
was to do it again I would of added
direct speech to involve my readers
and reach to them to a personal
level. Punctuation was important
and needed to be used
appropriately. I used exclamation
marks to emphasize the magazine
puffs and sub-headings. I used the
magazine VIBE as influenced for the
written content because of the used
of casual language.

12. How is the genre reflected in
your magazine?
• My magazine genre is pop/indie and I wanted to reflect the
genre as much a possible. I looked at trends and what’s in
and what’s not. The costumes of the artists and props
created an edgy yet on trend feel. The image I used on my
content is 2 boys singing loudly which shows a real live
show feel. By using all my images, it demonstrates the feel
of the magazine and its genre by using instruments such as
guitars. The colour used also reflects this by using
bold/vibrant colours which gives the magazine a pop edge.
Overall I think my magazine hit my target audience by using
appropriate fashion, colours and camera angles, this all
reflects onto the pop/indie genre. But I feel I could of given
a much more convincing indie genre to my magazine.

13. Layout of my front cover
• The layout of my front cover is quite conventional. I challenge
myself but also limited myself to fit into the magazine industry. I
have used aspects from magazines but also used my own individual
effects to make mine stand out from the rest of the magazines in
the market. for instant, I used a full scale of my image and placed it
in the centre, a lot of magazine do this but I have kept the
background of mine whereas stereotypical magazine removed the
background. This has automatically made my magazine look a bit
different because it shows artists in natural surroundings compared
to images taken in the studio. I used VIBE front cover as my main
inspiration and influence on my design. The masthead and how
they placed the subheading into a long list helped me achieve what
I wanted for my magazine.

15. Layout of content page
• My content page has elements that follow
convention of music magazines. For example it
features a WIN plug. I very much focused on a
content page from NME when I was creating
my own. I feel that it must conform to the
convention of an existing music magazine.
However I have use a dark colour background
rather than a white background.

17. Layout of double page spread
• The double page spread layout followed conventions to
music magazines. I found difficult to make the double
spread because I wanted it to be different to other
magazines. There was 2 main inspirations I used when I
was creating my DSP. The Lady Gaga DSP with the
massive red ‘L’ and the Black Eyed Peas DPS with a
layout similar to questions and answers. My image
took a whole page which follow conventions and also
making the artist staring at the reader creates a
connection from artist to reader. The pull quote wad
another device I used, placing it on the image, to draw
the reader to not one side of the page.

19. Conclusion
• Overall in my magazine I feel that I have followed
conventions, although challenging certain
aspects. Following conventions is important for
keeping within target market of existing magazine
by follow certain trends, for example the layout
of the magazine. Keeping with conventions I
would know it will satisfy the audience
expectations however if I had to go back and do it
again, I would like to challenge the convention a
lot more due to the demanding audience.