The document discusses the conventions used in real music magazines that the author's media product did or did not follow. Some conventions that were followed include using a bold masthead, having a famous musician on the cover, including sections like "Regulars" in the contents, and placing articles down the left side of the contents page. The double page spread convention of a large artist image on the left page and text on the right was also followed. Conventions that were challenged included not including an editor's message. The goal was to both conform to and challenge conventions of existing magazines.

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

2. The covers of both the magazines I analysed, NME and Bonafide both have
bold mastheads to stand out to the audience. This is a convention of
magazines in general, one which I followed with my masthead. One
convention of music magazines in particular that the magazines both had
was famous musicians on the front cover to attract fans of the genre/artist
towards buying the magazine. I tried to conform to and challenge this
convention as I have a close up of my artist on the cover, like NME has, but I
set up my artist as not being very well know yet so most people would now
recognise him unless they had discovered him already. Neither of the
magazines I analysed had many cover lines, something I conformed to during
the construction of my cover. They also have a main cover line of the cover
artists name in bold which I also conformed to because people could
recognise the name rather than the face. The cover for NME has a banner
across the bottom of the page, a convention of music magazines. I
conformed to this convention by also using a banner to advertise more of
the articles in my magazine in a smaller space.
COVER

3. Bold Masthead Artist Few Cover Lines Bold Main Cover Line
Banner

4. The contents page of NME has its logo shown in the contents page in order
to make the audience remember it and create brand identity. On my
contents page I followed this convention, which was important because my
magazine is new so making the audience subconsciously remember my logo.
Another convention that NME follows is to have the contents split into
‘Regulars’ and ‘Features’, something that I also included because ‘Regulars’
establishes a section of articles that the audience can expect every month so,
if they enjoy them, they will want to buy the magazine again. The NME
contents has small conventional descriptions of their features, something
which I also used in my contents. I did so in order to entice the audience into
reading the stories by drawing them in. One convention which I challenged
was the Editor’s message that NME has as I did not include one. I did not
want to include a message from the editor as I felt it was unnecessary and it
made the page seem overcrowded. A convention that Bonafide and my
magazine followed was having the articles down the left side of the page as I
thought it made the page simpler so therefore, easier to navigate.
CONTENTS

5. Magazine Logo Regulars/Features Small Descriptions of
each article
Editors Message
Contents down left
side

6. Bonafide’s double page spread has a large picture of the artist on the left
page then all of the writing on the right. This is a convention that I followed
in the creation of my double page spread as my design ended up being quite
similar. I followed this convention because I thought the large picture of the
artist helps to connect the audience to the artist while they are reading the
interview and so feel closer to them. Another convention that both NME and
Bonafide had was a Pull-Quote, something I also conformed to with my
design. I used a pull-quote because I felt it was a good way of giving the
audience an overview of what the whole interview will be like. The quote
also sums up the artists personality and ideals like I did in my chosen quote. I
also followed the convention that NME, for example has of a drop capital. I
felt it worked well in drawing the audience’s attention to the start of the
interview and my chosen front, like the font in NME is quite eye-catching.
DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

7. Drop Capital Pull Quote Large Image