The document discusses how the media product challenges conventions of real indie magazines. Research was conducted on target markets and magazine formats. The front cover uses a unique masthead design and black and white photo. The contents page is inspired by Q Magazine's layout. Double page spreads use a vintage style and acoustic guitar images to reinforce the indie feel. Color schemes, photo editing, and social media integration are used to engage audiences and feel professionally indie.

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

2. Research
 One of the first things that I researched was my
target market. I tried to find out what interests
them and what they normally expect to see in
an Indie/Pop magazine. I did this via an
electronic survey on www.surveymonkey.com
and then created a range of graphs to help
visualise the data in an easy to understand way
and to be able to spot the key things I needed
to include. I found that the vast majority of
people actually only buy a single music
magazine every month and so that my
magazine had to be as professional and eye-
catching as possible to get them to purchase it.
 http://danielbrownmedia.wordpress.com/tag/mai
n-print-task-research/

3. Magazine Front Covers
 Through my research, I found that Indie magazines tend to use a red
and white colour scheme. I decided for my magazine I wanted to try
and incorporate these colours but I also wanted to add in another
colour. I chose to add in blue as after doing some research and
experimentation with colours, I decided blue looked the best
alongside the red and white. I noticed that these same magazines
liked to include a listing of features on the front page. They like to
represent the music as well as the indie look to the magazine.

4. Magazine Contents Pages
 After this, I decided to annotate the contents pages of each
magazine so that I had a clear understanding of what current
magazine contents pages included and what a viewer
expects to see. This helped me to incorporate them into my
own contents page to create a more polished and
professional look.

5. Double Page Spreads
 After analysing the double page spreads of these magazines,
I found that they tended to include a key picture and in some
cases a variety of other shots. After doing some market
research, I found that my audience prefer a page if it has a
clear main photo and some less important shots to help
create a less daunting look of the article on the page.

7. Front Cover Analysis
 As I was planning and making my magazines masthead, I
wanted to try and challenge the normal conventions of an
indie magazine’s masthead and try to come up with
something unique and eye-catching. I have loosely based
my design off NME’s masthead by covering roughly 50%
of the width of the cover with the masthead. I believe I
have managed to create an eye-catching affect quite well
with my masthead as it really stands out and the font has
a very unique feel to it. This should help to catch the
attention of any potential buyers. Currently, a lot of
popular indie musicians have acoustic versions of their
songs out, or the original is an acoustic. To try and a
represent this in the industry, I have included an image of
an acoustic guitar being played by my photo subject. I
think that this image has been successful in making sure
that at a glance the magazine is an indie magazine.
 As the magazine is an indie magazine, I decided to try
and be quite different with the image and decided to use
a black and white image with coloured text. This isn’t the
normal approach to a front cover for a music magazine.

8. Contents Page Analysis

9. Contents Page Analysis
 When I was doing research on the contents
pages of other magazines, I found that Q
Magazine had a very unique and attractive
contents page. My Contents page’s layout is
inspired by Q Magazine’s due to target
audience research which the data told me that
layout was the best to use.
 I have used an image of the featured indie
artist Nicole. I used Photoshop to edit all the
images except the one at the bottom right hand
side of the page.
 I have included Social Networking information
to try and engage with the reader more and
incorporate cross-media convergence into the
magazine. This can help to spread the
magazine virally over the internet and cause
greater awareness of the magazine. The main
photos on this page try and incorporate a
vintage look.
 I have included the page numbers in the corner
of every image due to audience feedback
telling me that it might be a bit difficult to see at
a glance what page what you were trying to find
was on inside the magazine itself.
 At the bottom of the page I have included a
page number. This page number also included
the logo for my magazine which is a convention
I have seen in other indie magazines.

10. Double Spread Analysis
 My photographs here use a
very vintage style to them. I
have used this vintage look
to reinforce the indie feel to
the magazine itself. The
mise-en-scene of these
images shows a leather
jacket with a beige hat. The
way they are edited makes
Nicole look as if she has her
own style and is very
unique.
 The images are the top of
the page look as if they have
just been thrown onto the
page which is also quite an
indie convention. The
occurrence of the guitar in
The same Red/Black/Blue/White colour the bottom left image helps
again with continuity of the
scheme that I decided to use based on NME magazine and also the indie
and Q magazines has been continued through feel to the pictures as it
shows the acoustic style
to this double page to help with continuity. The seen with artists such as Ed
colours are slightly adjusted from those on the Sheeran.
first page to help with reading the text on the
varied backgrounds.

11. Photo Comparisons
 Here are some
images that I
have used for
inspiration for
my images
which can you
see on the
right. The
images on the
left are
professional
and I liked the
style of them so
based my
images of them
to try and keep
with the indie
conventions.