The document summarizes how the student's media product "Soundcheck" both uses conventions of real music magazines and challenges some conventions. It discusses design elements like the masthead, color scheme, cover images, cover lines, contents layout, and double page spreads. It also notes how "Soundcheck" incorporates social media promotion and a fact file about artists, challenging some magazine conventions. Overall, the student aimed to create a realistic music magazine while also appealing to their target 16-25 demographic.

1. Evaluation of
‘Soundcheck’
Question 1
Question 1

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

3. Front Cover:
The Masthead
The main image on the front cover of my music magazine is superimposed over
the top the masthead. This is a common feature used on well-known brands, as
well as other R’n’B genre magazines such as ‘Vibe’ and the rock music magazine I
researched ‘Kerrang!’. This technique signifies that the brand of the magazine is
well-known and successful because the masthead is recognizable on every
magazine cover they have published.

4. To ensure the masthead is recognizable ‘Soundcheck’
remains the same typography wherever it is represented
in the magazine. For example, the front cover and the
contents page use the same ‘Soundcheck’ logo but in
different colours, therefore whatever colour theme is
published in each issue it can adapt to. This is a common
feature of most magazines because they want to establish
a brand and a logo that can represent the magazine
wherever it is advertised.

5. Colour:
From the magazines I researched such as
, and . . It is obvious that the
most common colour scheme consists of red, black
and white most likely because they are extremely bold
and fairly gender neutral. As my magazine conformed
to the R’n’B genre striking, bold colours like these were
necessary to catch the attention of the target
audience. Red, black and white weren’t only used on
the logos but as a house style throughout, particularly
on the contents page and front cover.

6. Main Image:
The main image on the front cover of
‘Soundcheck’ challenges some conventions
of music magazines. The angle of the shot is
low and taken down a staircase where white
brick walls surround them. The body
language and facial expressions of the band
look posed and serious whereas when
looking at other famous musical male duos
they’re posed quite naturally or joking around.
But a plain coloured background is common
because it allows the double acts or any artist
to stand out and draw attention to them as the
focus. The way TL2 are dressed is casual to
portray that they are comfortable in their
surrounding which relates to the feature about
their lives at home before their fame. The
casual clothing is similar to the other R’n’B
duo features on front covers therefore a
convention of a real media product.

7. Cover lines:
‘Soundcheck‘ ‘Vibe‘ ‘NME‘ ‘Q’
I followed the convention of using the same typography on my cover lines apart
from using italic effects on particular words e.g. the name of Rihanna’s album. I
outlined each cover line with a different colour to stand out, this differs from other
cover lines I looked at. Most music magazines like to name artists who are
featured in the issue down the sides of the front cover, however I tried to appeal
to my audience by naming features in more detail to give them an insight to
what’s to come.

8. Strip:
It is quite rare to see a strip of further information on a music magazine because
they are commonly used on celebrity gossip magazines etc. If a strip is used it
usually consists of text on its own, yet I have included small images of album
covers just to attract more attention onto the cover as only one main image had
been used. As my magazine targets a teen demographic sometimes the more
images, the more appealing. At first the bar was placed diagonally like
but, it covered up some of the main image preventing it from being the focus of
the front cover. The strip at the bottom also prevents the magazine cover from
looking empty and plain particularly when the target is at a young age.
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9. Contents Layout:
The layout of the ‘Soundcheck’ contents is similar to the conventions of
magazine because the colours fit the house style and it looks very realistic.
However, I chose to create a collage of images of different sizes to match the
features in the contents purely to illustrate what the magazine consists of. The
largest image on the page represents what is the main feature of the week, a
particular band or artists.This is a convention of some other issues of ‘Q’ magazine.
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10. Social Networking:
The idea of promoting the magazine by social networking sites interacts with
the 16-25 year old target audience. It is evident that ‘Q’ have used their own
website and Myspace, whereas I decided to use my own website and a Twitter
page. With Twitter it is easy to access and you can advantageously interact
with the audience by promoting hashtags (#), a fun, modern way that relates to
most 16-25 year olds.
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11. Suscribtions:
I used the typical magazine product convention of suscribtions to the music
magazine. ‘Q’ and ‘Kerrang!’ use this technique on their contents pages,
although they conform to a different genre to ‘Soundcheck’, it is still a useful
convention to gain a larger circulation and readership as the audience make a
contract to the company. I put this information is a small, brightly coloured box
in the bottom left hand corner to not overpower the page but possible gain
some attention from the readers.
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12. Double Page Spread Layout:
I chose to lay the text out in three columns on my double page spread.
It is a typical convention in any professional magazine would portray,
for example ‘Vibe’ the Hip Hop, R’n’B magazine has used this layout of
text. I have also used a originally taken image as the background of the
spread which isn’t always a common feature of a double page spread,
however it is faded out a little so the text is still clear enough to read.
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13. Quotations:
‘Vibe‘ ‘Soundcheck’
Important quotations from the featured article are usually placed
around the text in a different typography to stand out and interest
readers whilst they are on the double page spread whilst the rest
of the text is simple and smaller sized. This is a common feature
of any magazine therefore I thought it was necessary to
incorporate into my music magazine ‘Soundcheck’.
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14. Heading:
Headings of double page spreads in music
magazines vary. Some just simply name the artist or
band, others either pun or nick name the feature and
some use a quote for the headline. I chose to
incorporate my bands logo ‘TL2’ onto any page they
were featured, such as the front cover and the
double page spread. Therefore that text is fairly
large on the page. ‘Young, fresh & ready’ acts as a
slogan for the band as they want to establish
themselves to their target audience. ‘Just Getting
Started’ is a sub-heading to the article as it suggests
that the act are new and their adjustments to their
stardom will be the main story of the feature.
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15. Social Networking DPS:
It is a very common convention to write the reporters name at the end of an
interview. However, the idea to include social networking logos next to the
name to add the ability of accessing the reporter is rarely used when
comparing with other music magazine. I incorporated the social networking
websites throughout the magazine so it conforms to my chosen target
audience of 16-25 year olds because they are frequent users of Twitter and
Facebook.
Another convention I challenged when producing
my music magazine was the use of a fact file.
When comparing ‘Soundcheck’ with magazines of
a similar target audience this isn’t a very common
feature to include. However, considering I am
within the age range of the demographic I
personally believe the fact file is a good technique
and an easy read after a long article, it gives a
little insight to the band better.
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