In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
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Conventionally, the magazine industry encourages conformity to the form that the magazine’s masthead should be the largest, boldest and most eye catching text on the page. This is in order to create a memorable and noticeable image, which is recognisable to the audience, therefore, promoting the magazine’s brand. Examples of this appear in ‘Rock Sound’, ‘Kerrang!’ and ‘NME’. The magazine which I produced replicated this standard by having a bold font, with a colour which drastically contrasts the magazine’s background colour, a device used in the magazines examples also. In addition, the font has an evidently gothic style, presenting the magazine’s style, with studded areas in order to mimic the target audience’s aesthetic style and therefore attracting them. In addition, it is typical that magazines which do not use acronyms in their masthead, eventing in longer titles, typically positioning them across the top of the front cover spanning across the width of the page (as shown in ‘Rock Sound’ and ‘Kerrang!’), as opposed to the upper left positioning of the shorter masthead for ‘NME’.
The magazine which I produced was named ‘Thrash’, as this conveys a clear theme of rock due to its relation to the subgenre thrash rock. This imitates conventional magazine masthead expectations which are shown in the magazine ‘Kerrang!’ for example, using an onomatopoeia of the sound of a power chord being played on an electric guitar, clearly associating the magazine to rock music. In addition, the phrase is monosyllabic, using harsh sounding continents to portray the harsh and pointed tone which is typically associated with rock music, which does not conform to the typical masthead format and the examples portrayed, however implies the musical genre clearly and is more memorable due to its length.
Conventionally, the magazine’s strapline would be positioned at the top of the page, above the masthead, spreading across the entirety of the width of the page, as shown in the magazines ‘NME’, ‘Rock Sound’ and ‘Kerrang!’. In addition, the magazines use two different colours in the strapline, drawing attention to the fundamental aspects of the information, whilst effectively portraying the differentiation between key content and contextual descriptions in the text. Therefore, in the magazine which I produced, the strapline was located at the top of the page using the colours white and black to accentuate the important aspects. Secondly, I included dividers to separate the words in my strapline, relating to the conventions portrayed in ‘Rock Sound’, and ‘Kerrang!’ which partition the words in order to convey a clearer and more definable strapline. The font, due to the smaller size of the text, must be clear as shown in the example magazines, therefore the font used in the magazine which I produced was clear and easily read, using the colour white for the key features of the strapline and the black for the partitions so as to not distract from the important parts. ‘Kerrang!’ uses a black box to highlight the strapline, however this feature is only conventional in mastheads which have fonts which are not particularly bold, however, as shown in ‘NME’ and ‘Rock Sound’, when the font is clear and bold enough to hold a presence on the page without a background there conventionally no box, therefore this is what I used in my magazine.
The strapline often offers exclusive content from the magazine, as shown in the examples above. I chose to use this concept and adapt it, using the strapline as an alternative way to portray exclusive content and features of the magazine, highlighting the magazine’s ‘graphical’ features which when opened will be revealed to be due to the poster special. This use of vague statements encourages the reader to engage in the magazine, mimicking the use of icon names which the example magazines present above, in order to turn the potential audience into the paying consumers. It also highlights the key selling point of the magazine issue in the strapline, as shown in the special edition magaziznes shown below.
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As shown in the examples below, ‘Kerrang!’, ‘NME’ and ‘Rock Sound’, conventionally the cover lines on the front cover of a magazine use multiple colours and fonts in order to draw attention to the key points and the main aspects which will draw a reader in, turning a potential market into the paying audience. In addition, the text is made to stand out clearly against the background by using a contrasting colour to the background as the text colour. I, in the magazine which I produced, included these conventions, highlighting the parts of the cover lines which are most likely to be engaging to the audience in a different font and colour. As shown in ‘Kerrang!’, it is typical of magazine front cover format to include additional content at the bottom of the page. Also, the magazine ‘NME’ includes these additional features on the right hand side of the page, and ‘Rock Sound’ included these stories on the bottom left. I took these devices into account when I developed my magazine, including additional stories in a briefer format at the bottom of the page.
The textual formality of the text in the magazine which I produced was relatively informal and brief. This is to convey the message of the text which I have wished to give in as little text as possible, so as to not clutter the page and to avoid reluctance to read from the audience due to the text’s long winded format. This technique is shown to be used in the example magazines below.
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In my magazine, my main cover line uses a different font, in a larger size than any other text on the page and in a unique colour. This is to draw the reader’s attention to the main feature of the magazine, demonstrating its importance. In addition, the fact that the cover line is positioned over the icon photograph displays that they are related and expands the article’s page presence as the icon is spread across most of the page. These techniques are also used in the examples above, ‘NME’, ‘Rock Sound’ and ‘Kerrang!’, conveying that this is a conventional format and device used in the magazine industry when designing the front page, which is why I chose to use this on my front cover. In addition, the magazine ‘NME’ uses a pull quote in the main cover line, conveying the article’s theme, differentiating it from the less important cover lines whilst also portraying the magazine’s musical theme, attracting the target audience.
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For the type of shot I used, it is portrayed to be conventionally important to display the icon’s personality, style and music genre through the photograph, as shown in the magazine examples above. For example, the ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine featuring Iggy Pop on the front cover, portrays him with aggressive body language, using dramatic lighting to convey his confrontational nature and its connotations with rock music. Similarly, the ‘Classic Rock’ magazine features the icon of ‘Guns N’ Roses’ in an aggressive posture, also dramatically lit. Therefore, in my magazine, I chose to portray my icon in my magazine in a confrontational nature, with her body language portraying confrontational tendencies, giving the edge which rock icons usually possess. Also, conventionally, female rock icons are conveyed in a softer lighting, as shown in the ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine featuring Debbie Harry on the cover, therefore, in my magazine I chose to use a softer lighting on my icon, giving the softer impression which is typically more feminine and therefore more attractive to the male potential audience, and more relatable to the females. In addition, the conventional front cover consists of a close-up or a medium close-up, however, medium close-ups tend to be more common guiding me to use a medium close-up in the magazine which I produced.
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I chose for the page number for the magazine which I produced to consist of around 50 pages. The reason I chose to use this number of pages is because it is positioned between the two magazines which I have researched upon which have the same occurrence, ‘Kerrang!’ and ‘Rock Sound’. This ensures that the reader is not discouraged by the amount of pages which may make it seem like a difficult magazine to read due to it being so thick but also seem as though it is worth the money which they are paying for it, in addition to there being a similar number of pages as magazines which they are used to, ensuring that it does not seem peculiar.
The magazine which I produced cost £2.99. This is a price which is relevant as the magazine will be issued weekly, in addition to this price being between the two prices of weekly magazines which were researched, ‘Kerrang!’ and ‘Rock Sound’. This does not discourage purchase as it is not significantly more expensive than other magazines in addition to the price not being unrealistic. It is also not significantly cheaper in order to avoid implying a lesser quality.
My magazine’s barcode was positioned on the bottom right of the front cover. This encourages a sense of familiarity to a possible buyer who is accustomed to purchasing magazines including and similar to the ones show above. This allows the reader to not be put off of this magazine by the unfamiliar format.
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Conventionally, it is common for the title of the contents page to be situated at the top, left hand corner of the page, therefore this is where I situated the title for the contents page which I produced. In addition, the title for the contents page in ‘Rock Sound’ was the magazine’s masthead, an unusual feature, due to the fact that the ease of use relies on the title of the page being clear and apparent, therefore I chose to use the title ‘contents’, alike what is used in ‘Q’ and ‘Kerrang!’.
Conventionally, in a contents page which consists of only one column, the location of it lies on the left hand side of the page as shown in the magazines ‘Q’ and ‘Rock Sound’, therefore, I used this format in the contents page I produced. With ‘Kerrang!’, an alternative format was used in that the main article was sectioned off from the others, situating them on the bottom of the page, however, this prevented the use of an image background, therefore I chose not to use this format.
In the listings for the articles, it is conventionally usual for the magazines to have different sections which different articles fall under. This is important for efficient usage and allows the reader to find certain articles via categorisation as shown in the magazine examples shown above, therefore I chose to use the categories ‘News’, ‘Features’, ‘Lives’, ‘Reviews’ and ‘Gigs’.
As shown in the above examples, the main image on the contents page would consist of the icon or a related photograph to the main article, with the magazine ‘Rock Sound’ using the icon’s photograph as the background, which is what I chose to do whilst incorporating the ‘Q’ and ‘Kerrang!’ magazine’s background format by having the text located on areas of the image which has minimal variation in colour, mimicking the block colour background.
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As shown in the examples above, a common convention which is often used in magazines regarding page furniture, such as the magazine ‘Rock Sound’, is that the text wraps around the image. I chose to use this feature as I wished to use a photograph as the page background, which is also a page furniture convention shown above. Secondly, another feature which I adopted into my magazine, which was shown in the magazine ‘Rock Sound’, was the additional text box, providing extra information about the icon which is related to their musical career. I used pull quotes in my magazine to attract the readers’ attention to certain parts of the article, capturing their interest and encouraging them read the article as shown in the magazine above also.
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The headline is conventionally located on the left page of the double page spread as shown in the magazine above, ‘Kerrang!’, where it is the largest text on the page, drawing high levels of attention and being extremely clear so as to clearly show the reader what the article is about. In addition, the titles are conventionally snappy, relating to the music which the icon plays, such as the ‘Kerrang!’ article headline being ‘Bring Me the Arenas’. This is why I chose to name my article ‘Back to Black’ as it references the Classic Rock song ‘Back in Black’, whilst also referencing the icon’s change in name.
The portion of text summarising the article below the headline acts as a teaser for its content, providing a premise so that the audience can make a judgment on the article which is why the language is persuasive of the fact that the article is interesting, as shown in the above magazine, ‘Kerrang!’. Therefore, I included a short summary, using a play on words in ‘hidden dark side’ in order to attract the audience to the article.
As shown in ‘Kerrang!’ the photographs which are used as backgrounds are often spread across two pages of the double page spread, this convention was a device which I used in the magazine which I produced in order to create an aesthetically pleasing page which was free of unusual empty space. The photograph which spreads across both photographs also provides an outline to where the text should be placed, which also why this convention often seen.
A convention shown in the examples above is that the pull quotes are typically situated amongst the main body of the text, providing key aspects which may be intriguing or implying of drama when read without context near their situation in the text, urging the reader to read the article in order to justify the statements made. In addition, a feature which is often used is to include a question and answer segment of the article, with the interview aspect of the article being interesting to the audience who wish to experience personal interaction with the icon directly.
As shown above, including the folio and information about the magazine is essential in order to promote the magazine and for the reader to keep track of the page numbers. They are located on the outer corner of each page at the bottom, allowing the reader to view the page numbers easily when turning the pages of the book. I chose to include this convention in the magazine which I created, however, instead of using the magazine’s website in this corner I used the magazine’s masthead, as this is more conventional and typically seen in magazines which I discovered upon further research and as seen in the magazine example for 'NME' below.
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