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

My magazine uses allot of current magazine conventions, for example there is a large main image on the front cover and also smaller images around the edges, the features are all conventional for example the title of my magazine is in large writing and in the centre at the top, also my magazine cover is very busy and that is typical of modern magazines. As well as this my contents page is similar to other contents pages as the features are all conventional in things such as position and size. My contents page follows the same colour scheme as my front cover and it also uses similar images as this will give the magazine some form of continuity instead of it changing all the time which gives it a look of professionalism and also I do not believe that the readers would like it if the colour scheme was changing all the time. My two page spread is also similar to other magazines as it has similar features and layout style. I used the same image and colour scheme for my two page spread as I did on the front cover because that is where this feature was advertised and therefore I wanted it to link to my front cover and also have some continuity about it. The reason I made my magazine similar to other current magazines is because I had looked at other popular modern magazines and they all had similar layout and features, therefore I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to make a successful and eye-catching magazine I would have to try and follow the forms and conventions of other magazines. I also believe that if I had tried to change the way my magazine had looked my audience may not have liked the change and purchased a magazine that did follow the trend of how modern magazines looked. I think that using the forms and conventions of popular magazines was a good decision as I feel that my magazine looks good and professional and this would persuade someone to buy the magazine, whereas if I had changed it there would have been a risk that my magazine would have looked unprofessional. In terms of the genre of my magazine I did challenge the forms and conventions of media products as there are not many magazines that focus mainly on r ‘n’ b and hip-hop music , however I felt that genre would be good area in which to challenge forms and conventions as it would enable me to exploit a gap in the market, if I had used forms and conventions in genre if would be producing a magazine that has the same content as others and therefore it would probably not sell as I would be up against magazines such as Kerrang and Q. When it came to deciding what type of language to use I had to look at things such as the content of my magazine and also my target audience, I did this because if I had used the wrong language style my magazine may not have appealed to my target audience. For my language style I used forms and conventions of other magazines as I looked into what language other magazines of the same type used, I found that they use a chatty and informal style of language in their magazine so that is what I decided to use.

Magazine two page spread

Magazine contents page

Magazine front cover

Draft 2

Of the two draft's I made I decided that I liked this layout the most and therefore I will base my magazine on this layout.

Draft 1

Colour Scheme

To decide on what colour scheme to have in my magazine I made a questionairre with different colour schemes on it and asked my target audience to put a mark next to the colour scheme they preffered and would like to see in a magazine.

Here are the results:

black and yellow: 8

black and red: 3

white and red: 3

white and blue: 2

white and black: 4

The clear majority was with black and yellow, therefore I will be using this as my main colour scheme. I think that it is important to have a colour scheme that your audience will like so that your magazine will be eye-catching to them and therefore they will buy the magazine. Also it is good to have colours that are associated to the genre of the magazine and I feel that these are colours that are associated with Hip - Hop.

Target Audience

My target audience are teenagers aged from 13 - 19, male or female, who have an internest in Hip-Hop music. Stereotypically my target audience are more likely to live in the city and have parents within the lower income bracket. My target audience will probably attend a public school and have interests in sports such as basketball. They will have a typical city fashion style for example jeans or tracksuit bottoms and also a branded t-shirt and jacket, they would also be likely to wear a baseball cap and also jewelery such as chains and rings. They will idolise celebrity's who have "rags to riches" life storys such as 50 cent. although they have interest in sports they will probably not take there sport too seriously and will be laid back and not particularly outgoing.