My media product uses and challenges some conventions of existing music magazines. It uses conventions like a focus on indie music, red coloring associated with that genre, and layouts that make content easy to find. However, it challenges conventions by having a longer descriptive title rather than initials, and not including text on one side of the double page spread to focus solely on the image. Overall, the goal was to be unique while still attracting readers through some familiar conventions.

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

2. Introduction
• In my magazine I wanted to use some of the existing
conventions of magazines such as NME and q as this is
key to attracting buyers. However I also wanted to
produce a magazine that was unique. This will be
presented in the work I have done such as the layout,
contents and images used to make my magazine.

3. Title
• The title I have chosen has both developed and challenged existing
productions. It has challenged it in the way that most music
magazines from the genre i chose have initials e.g Q and NME. I
challenged this as I wanted to show readers what my magazine was
really about by using the title I did ‘bass’ this gives an insight to the
buyer that my magazine produces because if i used initials then
buyer may not know what the magazine is about. However my
magazine followed the conventions of existing productions as some
indie magazines also have a longer name for example uncut and
mojo.

5. Font and Style
• I wanted to use a font that was fit into the magazine throughout as
well as being similar to NME. The fonts I chose elephant, gill sans
MT condensed and berlins sans. By using these fonts it made my
masthead bold and attractable to the audience.
• I also noticed that red is the colour used on many indie magazines
as red has connotations of dominance. Red brings text and images
to the foreground. As this is the reason I chose a dark red so that the
reader could easily identify the genre as well as being a bit different
and making my magazine stand out from the rest because when
doing my research I never seen any others with dark red the
majority were red.

6. Costume
• The most common buyers for music magazines
are 13-25 and is male dominated. I wanted to
appeal to the biggest audience so my model is
wearing clothing that a male audience can
associate to so that the magazine will sell more
copy’s.

7. Lighting
• I tried to create an artificial lighting that did not produce
shadows, but wanted to keep it as natural as possible so
that it was true to existing magazines.
• Eye contact - I felt that it was very important to follow
conventions and to make sure that my model had direct
eye contact with the camera. This is important because
in a music magazine, the eye contact creates a
relationship between the reader and the artist.

8. Body Language
• There is provocative action shown on my cover which
follows conventions which can be seen on some
magazines e.g. Eminem on the front cover of NME

9. Props
• I used a prop of an acoustic guitar, drum kit, recording
studio andpiano, I did as it would be common to use an
acoustic guitar in an indie magazine as that’s the style of
music my magazine is. As well as on my other image on
my contents page my other model was sat speaking into
a mic in a recording studio.

10. Contents Page
• My magazine contents page is more of a more straight forward
lay out as this follows the conventions of magazines such as Q as
these Layouts are more simplistic so that the reader can easily
see what they are reading. My magazine has a more organised
layout in comparison to magazines such as NME and Kerrang as
I felt this will appeal more to a wider market that may have been
'put off' by hectic design of some music magazines.
• Like existing publications I had to make sure that there was
same style throughout my magazine therefore I ensured that on
my contents colour were the same. I used the same font style in
the banner of the contents page as the front cover and the same
font to ensure this.

12. Double Page Spread
• As seen in other music magazine I did an interview with my artist which I
turned into an article about the artist so that it creates a more personalised
relationship between the reader and the artist.
• Similarly to other double page spread I used a large quotation that was
intended to be somewhat controversial as it encourages the audience to
read the whole article.
• I also included a small summary at the top of the article to give the reader
an insight into what the article is going to be about.
• However I went against conventions as I had no text on the left hand side of
the page, usually the artist's name is featured here or the summary yet I
wanted the left hand side to purely concentrate on the image.
• I developed existing conventions as the photographic image on the cover
presents the artist as a strong, with lots of attitude.