The document discusses how a student's media product uses and develops conventions of real magazines. Specifically, it analyzes the masthead, fonts, color scheme, photography style, and text/image relationships used in the student's mock magazine covering hip hop music. The student aims to challenge conventions by using unique colors and fonts, as well as photography showing faces in a new style, while still relating to target audiences. Development of conventions includes integrating consistent colors throughout and linking cover lines and titles through similar fonts. Overall the student works to create a fresh look while meeting audience expectations of the hip hop magazine genre.

1. Q1.
In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?

2. The main conventions which need to be This masthead fits the target audience and genre of music, this is
are going to be analysed to see if my because of a number of things, from the colour to the meaning on
magazine challenges or developed the the masthead and the style which I used.
With the colour I used I used a bright different, unique colour flow,
stereotypical magazine are: this is because of the uniqueness of the style of hip hop, bright
•Page numbers colours and original, so I tried to carry this on in the magazine. So it
• Masthead would relate to the audience, therefore they would be more likely to
• Fonts buy the magazine.
• Colour scheme
• Style of photography With the name of the magazine, calling it ‘the roots’ it has a
• Writing style underlying meaning, saying the roots of the music, the original
source the first port of call for music lovers, and this follows with the
• Pull quotes other magazine names like ‘the source’ and ‘vibe’ relating there
• Cover lines masthead to music meanings. So in that sense I am developing the
conventions.
With the traditional masthead its all about
grabbing the attention of the audience, and With the font style its doesn’t follow any conventions as its unique
expressing the magazine and the name of and totally different
the magazine, I have lined my magazine to any magazine
against mine which are in the same genre of Mastheads, the style
music, so the target audience would be the Of a cartoon strip,
same. Showing the results are that the are Showing the playful
all bright colours, standing out and Harmless side of hip
different, ‘short and sweet’ I developed the -hop and shows the
convention by not using the traditional Art behind hip hop,
colour but also the style of font, as this one As its not just music
is in a cartoon style, and how the mast head Its a way of life. It could
is in front of the main image, but I doesn’t Also be represented as
intrude in the style because its not covering ‘Tagging’ graffiti style,
up any on the features. Showing the streets of
The music.

3. With the style of the photographs are unique and challenges, like in the other two images, showing the portrait mid
shot of the face, showing emotion of the face of the musician, which can get a representation of the music and
character of the person, but with the style of mine is with the persons head down, not showing their face and with
there head down hood up, showing a back street unique style.. Individualises them from everybody else, in a good or
bad, depending on the audience takes them.
With the image been all in black and white and the only colour showing the American flag on his cap, breaks down the
hardness of the image and becomes more art and the image can be read into more, like not needing to express
himself, his music can do that, and why should he show his face, continuing the conventions of magazines covers,
differentiating themselves is good, a fresh look on a front cover from the image used. This will also grab attention to
the magazine, wondering who it is and therefore enticing the readers, which is the hardest thing to do, creating a good
impression.
The relationship between the layers of text and imagery does fit the conventions of a front cover, this is because
intruding on the image will distort the meaning behind, creating clutter and the magazine would be over powered of
colour and text, so fitting the text around the image, creates cleanness and shows the magazine off.

4. Showing how my content page follows and develops the conventions and codes
of a traditional magazine, a lined them up next to each together to compare,
them against each other, I followed the style of the other hip hop magazines, as
it is a proven way of showing the content of the magazine in a way the target
audience like, because if it was different, then the hip hop genre of magazines
wouldn't be using it anymore, and as regularly as they do.
The way in which I develop the style is integrate the colour scheme into the
content page from the image and the box’s used for the text, as in other
magazines, its very minimal. Developing the image behind to continue the black
and white style but showing the colour green which works well with the purple
which is my colour scheme, (green and purple) this is the first time which you
see this and therefore will lead onto the other pages in the magazine.
The content page is still very minimal, as its only the content page, and the aim
is to get the information across as easy as possible.
Compared to the hip hop
magazine style this is a indie
magazine to the left, where
its all sectioned of, over
complicated more images
and less stylish, the rigidity of
the content page wouldn't fit
with the hip hop genre, as a
whole, hip hop is free flowing
and I try and carry this on in
the magazine, the style works
though for indie/alternative
style of music.

5. With the consistent colour scheme integrating throughout the magazine, showing a individual style and how each
page interlinks together, showing a unique style and differentiating it from other magazines, as you can see the
colour scheme is green and purple, not the traditional red black and white, because been the same as every other
magazine as it is a new magazine, different pays off, and with it been a hip hop magazine the colours work well,
bright out there and individual, what hip hop is and stands for.
As you can see the front cover shows the same person as in the double page spread, as the front page normally
shows the main feature, this fits the conventions, and has the cover line at the bottom of the page in the front cover
has the same font as the main title for the double page spread also shows there interlinked, the colours are
consistent throughout and doesn’t vary, its very simple but effective, and all the arrow on the diagram below show
how everything interlinks, showing nothing on the pages are an accident that they have all been done for a reason.
Back to the colour scheme, as red is always used to grab attention and is a proven way of expressing text to the
target audience, it still is used but very minimal, in the content page, I still used black and white for the writing
because its the clearest way of showing text, but with the purple writing, having it on a black background it stands
out as much as a red text on a black background, as purple isn't used as much, it would be more effective, because
people don't see it as much.

6. Meeting the conventions of fonts used in magazines, is difficult, as there are so many
different styles of magazines it hard to understand what the norm is and what out and
different, using different fonts is needed in magazine, that's a norm, and I used a
minimum of six different fonts, which shows I do meet the conventions, its just were I
changed the style of font which will make me develop and change the conventions.
With the different styles of fonts used they are for a reason,
starting from the top, with the content page header, using a
urban font, making it unique and this is just a common for
the content page because it doesn’t link to any other pages
as in imagery and meaning, unlike the main page, been
linked to the double page spread.
The next font is a sixties font, which is used because of the
name of the artist, which originated from a gangster in
America, the use of it twice is because the cover line and the
title are related to the same feature. Which means the
readers will automatically make a link between the front
cover’s cover line and then the double page spread when
they come to it.
With the font used in the main body of
text, it is very simple, this is because
simple text is easier to read and
understand, and it doesn’t need to show
off. The text size is also small, to be able
to get the information on the page, no to
small so it cannot be read easily

7. With the double page spread, I tried to make it
very unique and aim for a free flowing style, as
like the two pages are one, not with a separate
image on the left and just text on the right, the
way I tried to collaborate them was to make
them have the same back ground so it looks likes
the text is on the background of the image itself,
as if there was space left for the text, I got this
from the double page spread above, and this is a
unique style which I found, so sticking with the
conventions of double page spreads is quite
difficult, because many different ones I looked at,
were very ‘blocky’ too squared off and very
formally structured, this is structure but in a
hidden way, that's the way in which I developed
the conventions of a double page spread.
Also taking about the conventions of the writing
style, which is used, it is very specific for the hip
hop scene, because it has words and phrases
which can be interpreted differently but mean a
different thing in the hip hop scene and would
relate to the audience and make it easier to
understand, the text isn't formal either, because
the age group would be young and the literacy
skills would be below average.