Evaluation part 1 - Foundation portfolio
- 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- 2. I think that my media product (indie music magazine) does use and develop conventions of real media products as it is based off of ideas from other real music magazines. Many of my ideas for my indie music magazine were inspired from other indie music magazines, such as NME. I used the normal features of a magazine eg. Barcodes but also added my own original ideas. Here is my front cover and the NME front cover I got inspiration from. These front covers compare as they both use mainly reds and yellows. The yellow represents happiness but the red represents danger therefore combined they create a mysterious theme towards the magazine. Their facial expressions both show that they are looking serious which emphasises that they are both serious in their music. My music magazine challenges conventions of real music magazines as most indie music magazines have a close up image of an artist or band, as you can see in this example of the NME front cover here. Where as I used a medium shot for my front cover image, so this shows how they are represented and will entice the viewers into buying the magazine.
- 3. I think my media product uses develops and challenges forms and conventions of real magazines. The masthead of my magazine is placed at the top of my page where it is clear and the reader can view it easily. The mast head is called Indigo, I named my magazine Indigo as it is always on the go, keeping up with the latest indie music. The look of my masthead is similar to NME’s mast head. This is because both mast heads are bold and both have a white outline which also makes the masthead stand out. In my opinion I think the masthead’s challenge real music magazine products as my masthead and NME’s are similar. Although they are different colours, NME’s is red which is a bright and colourful colour but my mast head is dark which emphasises a dark and gritty atmosphere which relates to the indie genre of music.
- 4. These are two conventions of my front cover. I made sure that I used the main components such as the date, price and a barcode, which I personally think follows every magazine convention. These conventions are real media products. This develops forms of real media conventions. On my front cover this is my main cover line. Viewers will be able to tell it is the main cover line as it is the biggest text on the page. This is a convention of a real media product because all types of magazines have one big text on their front cover which is meant to stand out more than the rest. ‘New Faces 2015’ will attract the target audience as they will be intrigued as to who these new people may be.
- 5. My contents page uses forms of real media conventions as the word contents is placed straight at the top just like the masthead of my front cover. The continuous style shows the brands identity which will stick into the readers mind of how the masthead looks. Real music magazines are always organised and clear in two catergories, this allows the reader to find what they're looking for. I have stuck with this convention and set my contents page into catergories vertically. As you can see here the catergories are all the same size, colour and style. This makes my contents look professional. I also made sure that I included headings because they are a very vital part of a contents page and because the reader will want to be able to look quickly to navigate what they are looking for. I included social media icons as it uses real media conventions in a music magazine and also looks more professional. My magazine contrasts to a real media product as the text box I have used for the catergories has a very low opacity where you can see through to the background, indie music magazines do not usually use this.
- 6. On my double page spread the title catches the attention of the audience as it says ‘Kayyah Robun’ who is an artist who attracts the audience of the age range of my magazine. The title refers to who the double page spread is going to be about therefore the audience will want to read more. For my main image I used Kayyah as she is the main artist of my magazine. I used Kayyah as the story is about her. Her facial expression shows she has power as she looks serious and her head is tilted upwards as if she is looking down on the viewer. I did not go extreme with my background as Indie music magazines usually have plain white backgrounds on the double page spread, I found this from research. I also wanted the conventions of my double page spread to stand out. ‘I can be quite hard to understand’ is my pull quote, which almost all magazines have especially on their double page spreads which compares my magazine to a real media product.
- 7. My double page spread contrasts from a real indie music double page spread because I have included a background behind a section of the text but to make it more like a real media product I lowered the opacity of the background.