Evaluation Question One

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms & Conventions Of Real Media Products ?

When creating my magazine I found that in order to gain a professional end look it was important that I based the products I was creating around products from real media conventions  Through the different stages of research that I carried out for each product, I was able to analysis aspects of front cover, contents pages and double page spreads that were popular among similar magazines to the one that I was creating. Magazines that I found myself focusing my research on were ;

By using magazines such as these and other similar ones, I was able to identify common themes among them and represent those in my work as well as mixing them with my personal preferences to create the best possible magazine.

Front Cover:  The real media conventions that I gained my ideas from for this product come from a combination of Billboard and Blender Magazine. To begin with I was very focused on creating a similar pose of the model to Billboard however I feel I challenged this through using a mid shot of my model and not so much a close up like can be seen with their shot of Miley Cyrus. Using this specific magazine as a real media convention was useful as it portrayed the same feel of empowerment of women that I was attempting to achieve. I also adapted the way the cross, diagonal banner and positioning of bar code into my own cover. I was fond of the way that Blender had laid out their text down the sides of the page and felt that this would work well for my product in combination with the focus that I already had with Billboard

Contents Page: The contents page was the product that I gained ideas from the most sources of real media conventions. I ended up basing my magazine largely around a page from Q and Smash Hits. I was very fond of the use of large banner at the top of the page on Q magazine and the use of different size images. The colour scheme of this page also fitted with my magazine. However the use of columns  for the listings and bar at the bottom of the page that I could manipulate into my charts bar came from this edition of Smash Hits. However the initial idea for me to include a chart bar on the contents page on my contents page come from Billboard magazine, which has a very similar concept to my magazine.

Double Page Spread: This was the most focused of all of the products that I created in terms of following in the footsteps of a real media convention. During my research I found this article from Q magazine and decided that I wanted to create something very similar as a I felt it looked very sleek and powerful which fitted with the theme, persona of the model and article. From this Q double page spread I was able to pick out the colour bars, bordering , pull quotes and layout of the article that I wanted to use in my own work.