Media Magazine Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media products?
My magazine uses conventions of real time products, for example I have used the mast head and it is big and stands out on my front page, it also has its own icon so it is identifiable and it also has a different meaning as it has a relation to rock band, for example rock bands are stereotyped by taking drugs (pills) and PIL relates to them. It also has its main image on the front of the magazine which has the eye contact with the models and it also has the faces in clear view. It is large and also very powerful as it shows all of the people in the bad as well as the photography equipment as that relates to their band name. There are little colours on my front page but I wanted to keep the colours very basic and not eye straining, it has some aspects of strong colours but not every colour in the spectrum. There is a thumbnail at the top of the page which advertises a poster inside my magazine and along with that there is the odd information on my front page such as ‘back4LESS, INSIDE NOW’, if there was some more I think that my front page would look more professional and it would fill up most of the white space. I have the language such as ‘INSIDE OF THE TOUR OF THE YEAR’ which would draw the audience to my magazine. There is the barcode at the bottom of my magazine front page along with the issue number, the full date, the price in pounds as well as dollars and the main feature, the website that can be visited. There currently isn’t any teasing content on my front page but I think it would be good if there was, it would again fill in the white space and make the page look more professional as other magazines have it as well. The thumbnail at the top also ties in with the competitions and the free gifts, there is the logo of ‘One Girl’ at the top of the magazine and it is big and would attract the attention of reader as well as the font used. I think the one thing I will have to keep in consideration would be the font, the font has been changed about seven times and if it was all the same that it would keep my magazine consistent and professional looking. I had previously looking into the conventions in my individual research on my blog. Also onto the contents page, I think there was more effort put into this because it was set out a lot more neater and it is set out like a magazines contents page, it has the colours working good with the background as well as the font, the font doesn’t have much of a change on my contents page, I think it works very good. The conventions have been followed very well in my contents page, the page title at the top is eye catching but it could do with it being bigger. I followed the conventions of Kerrang on my front page as I think Kerrang’s Contents page is neatly set out and you can find everything you want without straining eyes. There is a image on contents page which shows the quotes from the double page spread which is very affective, putting a over view on the contents page is good, it make the audience think about where to go next and it even give the page number too. The bottom half of the contents page shows the features in that week’s magazine which is very professional and it also give the audience a thought about where to look if they have a specific place that they want to look when they open up the magazine. There is also the continuous font style as the mast head which is very consistent and it makes the magazine look a lot more professional. There are some images on the contents page, there is the picture of the editor which is nice to have, and it gives the audience the feeling of being personal with the editor. There is the poster special at the bottom of the page and an overview of the double page spread. There are red highlighted page numbers on the sections so it is easy to navigate for the audience, alongside that there is a small brief of what is being featured as well as a catchy small line under it to give the audience a little more information about what is being published. There is the use of large and clear font at the bottom half of the contents page which makes it easy to read and it is also eye catching, not the colours that catches the eye, but the quality that has been put into the design. There weren’t any advertisements in the contents page, mainly because I don’t think I took the space of the text into consideration but it does look professional, but I think a small advert would make the contents page look like it belongs to a real magazine. There was a lot of various language techniques such as ‘Alfie is back’ it is short and powerful, it also give the audience a though about who has come back and why did they disappear in the first place, it give it something worth reading for the audience, and finally on the double page spread there is a few conventions that I ignored which I think I should have stuck to. There are the continuous colour types in my double page spread as well as the quotes that have been taken out of the article and made bigger which makes it eye catching for the audience. There is also a number of image of the band on my double page spread which makes it very social and it also relates to NME’s magazine, on their double page spread they had several images on their page and it looked very good, it showed them having more than one stance and facial expression, it showed more which was very good. Plus there was the bands logo/name was big and it its own font which shows that they are a personalised band and like things their way and no one else’s. The conventions that I had broken was the text dragging onto the main image, I don’t like this convention, mainly because if there is a dark background and a dark text then it is hard to read, as well as that.
