Draft Evaluation Question 1

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

During the research and planning stage I looked at various magazine models (Billboard, The Source and Vibe magazine) and looked at the graphology, the page layouts and the styling of the character. To achieve a similar product, I looked at a magazine that adopted specific properties which fit my idealised genre; for example, I used the magazine billboard to focus my attention on Eminem with his styling, positioning and clothing. Billboard was a huge influential magazine cover for me because   of their unique designs and their style they use on their front cover. I wanted to make my magazine name go down the left hand side of the page like the new issues of Billboard. This is because not many magazines have their title in a different position and makes my magazine stand out and look unique from others. I also experimented with text font for my title and wanted it to look like Billboards font because it looked simple and modern. Looking at Billboard also allowed me to incorporate minimal writing in a small amount of area. On their cover, they usually have a brief introduction to the main person on the front which draws in the audience’s attention. I also looked at The Source magazine which is a big hip hop magazine, including very famous faces like Eminem and 50 Cent. At first I really liked their title with the drop shadow effect and the white boarder, and the fact that most pictures are a close up or a medium shot. This is where I incorporated the close up shot into my magazine instead of a full body shot. I loved the layout of Billboard magazine’s content page because it didn’t look like any other content page before. I love that they included the Charts and had minimal writing with lots of pictures of artists. I love the layout of the contents page and the graphology as well. Billboard was another big influence on my double page spread and I like that they have a main image on the left or right hand side. I first incorporated this but added in a filter effect which challenges the conventions of real media products. This filter allowed me to delete the edges around the picture and have the image on its own on the left hand side of the page. The rest of the double page spread was not inspired by other magazines and wanted to incorporate something different and stylistic.

Although I challenged the normal conventions of a cover page and double page spread, I didn’t not challenge them with my contents page. This is because my contents page looks a lot like Billboard’s contents and contains the right amount of information that would be included normally. However, I feel that I have represented my magazine as unique with the poster filter effect added to make the magazine stand out from the rest. This effect has not been incorporated into a magazine that I have seen. This might be because it is extremely controversial with the style of their magazine, or it wouldn’t sell well with their target audience. My masthead challenges the normal conventions of real magazines because it is not in the usual place and it is on its side. This is because I like the Billboard title where it is on its side which goes against the normal masthead format where it is at the top of the page. Grey, Blue and white was a constant theme I stuck to throughout my magazine. This wasn’t matched with the main artist because I wanted them to stand out and look different, drawing the audience’s attention in on them. The colour blue stands out against the grey background and the white, making my magazine look simplistic and stylistic at the same time. These colours worked really well and helped me create a corresponding style across my cover, contents and double page spread.

I decided to go against the conventions of a normal hip hop artist on my front cover. This is because I added in a poster filter effect onto my artist (Charlee) to make my magazine have a different look from the rest, making it stand out. This is when I came to the realisation that it did not conform to the ‘simplistic’ and ‘minimalistic’ design as other magazines. My contents page on the other hand did and didn’t conform to the natural contents format. This is because I used Billboards content page as a model for me to take ideas. I used two different images on my contents page but normally, there is one big image, instead of two small ones. The decision to challenge the norm of real magazine layouts is something I am happy with. I am pleased with the main masthead going down the side of my magazine and the filter effect on my main artist because I personally think it looks really nice and well done.