Evalutaion Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My magazine I think follows the convention of real media products, for example the front cover has the title in the top left hand corner and a main feature to the whole magazine. It also has a strip at the bottom of the page telling us what else is in the magazine. This is very similar to most magazines which either have strips of information at the top or bottom of the page. I decided to use a black and white image to give the magazine a different effect rather than the usual colour image; also I think it makes the magazine seem more vintage as if it could be a special edition. I think it works well with the colours I chose to do the writing and other things around the main image, like the band logo and extra information on the actual image. Using a black and white image makes the white text stand out more making it more catching to the eye. As well as making the image stand out, using a black and white image doesn’t follow conventions of real media products because you don’t usually get a black and white image as front cover.

My contents page doesn't really follow the norm because I used one image to take up the whole of the page and added writing on the right had side of the page. It does not include other images like you would usually find on a normal contents page, therefore giving more of an insight into what’s in the magazine. Mine doesn’t really give away a lot in terms of images; you have to read to find out. This might to appeal to some people because they might prefer to look at something visual to see whether they are interested in reading the rest of the magazine. The title CONTENTS I decided to split so I have CON on one line and TENTS on the other. I like this idea to make the page look a bit different and maybe not follow the normal conventions of having the while word on one line. I think this works well on my page because of how big the image is and where it has been placed. As for the writing I think it is very conventional in terms of how the numbers have been put into a circle to make them stand out more, a lot of magazines have this. Overall my contents page is quite different from a real magazine contents page.

As for my double page spread, I have tried to keep it as simple as possible because I didn’t want it to look like there was too much going on as well as the writing. I used an image on one side of the page and text on the other to separate the two, and with a white background it makes the writing stand out more. I decided to make my introduction to the article bigger and in a different colour to hopefully bring the reader in and want to read my article. I used quite powerful words to really sell the band before going into my main article. This tends to follow convention as most articles have an introductory bit before the main article. As for the article itself it pretty much follows a real magazine with two columns of writing. The only was I would say that it doesn’t follow convention is that I used another black and white image to carry the theme on from the front page, keeping the vintage look. I think this works with the bit of colour in the introduction.