Media coursework

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

2. Cover
● To gain a conventional understanding of a music magazine
front cover I looked at 3 varying magazine designs: Classic
rock, Big cheese, and Metal Hammer magazine. These all
had running conventions which could be seen as
similarities throughout. Firstly the subject of the front cover
can always be seen with his/her head slightly obscuring
the name of the magazine. It is also a conventional aspect
to have the names of other bands and articles within the
magazine mentioned on the cover and often overlapping
the covers subject.

3. My cover
● I tried to follow as many conventions as
possible with me having my subject
place central on the page with his head
obscuring the title of my magazine
“EQUALIZER”. My cover also contains
a number of secondary stories which
informs the reader as to what they can
expect to find in my magazine. On the
cover there is also the price of the
magazine and contact information for
social networks all of which is very
conventional.

4. Contents
● All contents pages follow very similar layouts and
conventions. For example if a story was on the cover it
would be indicated in brackets that this was indeed a cover
story. Contents pages generally work in columns following
numerical order as this makes it much easier to navigate.

5. My contents page
● My contents page follows many
conventions with it's layout making the
information easily accessible for
anyone reading the magazine. It
contains the name of the article and a
witty caption that describes the article.
I do not believe that wit is
conventional but I felt would be
something the would match the tone
of my magazine and add to the
entertainment value.

6. Double page spread
● Some of the conventions I noticed when analysing a
double page spread are a linear format which can be
easily followed. This will often have large embedded
quotes emphasising some of the more interesting parts of
the interview. There will be a large picture of the artist and
this will usually take up an entire page, this is done so that
a person flicking through the magazine is more likely to
notice the article.

7. My Double page spread
● My double page spread follows as many conventions as
possible. One page is being used to display an image of
my artist with a back drop silhouette of his “former band”.
The interview is placed after this image and as mentioned
on the previous slide I have a large imbedded quote which
can draw interest into the article.