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

Overall, my music magazine conforms to most music magazine conventions. The front cover has a large, stylised masthead at the top of the page which is made up of the word ‘Amped’ in a very grungy font. By adding shadow and some grunge brush strokes over the top, the masthead became more of a logo rather that just text. The issue number, website and date are places just to the right of the masthead, like on most music magazines.

My overall design was heavily influences from my research into current music magazines like Mojo and NME. I found through market research that people preferred a classy, professional design like Mojo and most people did not like the sometimes messy layout of magazines like NME. An example of a Mojo front cover that heavily influenced my choices is shown below, along side my magazine.

As you can see, the designs are very similar, with a black and white image for the background  which is relevent to the main anchor and bright colours for the title and other anchors to make the page more interesting. The anchors are made up of a title with a large font and a smaller tagline underneath, which gives the reader a small idea of what will be inside the issue. The barcode at the bottom of the page and the circular puff indicating the price of the magazine are two conventions of music magazines that I have decided to stick to with my magazine.  The use of an out of place colour for the background of the word exclusive is something that is often used on magazine covers, like on the Mojo magazine on the left.  The word exclusive is also a buzz word.  Buzz words are used often on magazines as they help to attract the users attention.

My double page spread is designed in a similar way to double page spreads in current magazines, like the front page. It consists of a large ‘main’ image and two smaller images with an article title and the article text. The main image has to been post-processed to give it a cross-processed look which makes the image look more stylised and interesting than a normal colour image would.  More examples of cross processed images can be seen here and here.  A screenshot of my double page spread is shown below.

The two smaller images have a thick, black border and have been rotated which makes them look like they are pictures that have been scattered on the page. The article text is put into several thin columns, which is generally the norm in music magazines. My design of this page is influenced from one of the double page spreads that I analysed, see here.

My contents page is styled similarly to my front cover with the same colour scheme used.  It is made up of a main title and date at the top of the page in a large font (the same fonts used on the front page.)  Below that there is a grey banner across the page with two images inside relating to the same article.  In the top right of the right hand image there is a page number and on the right hand image there is the word 'Exclusive' in a red font, as on the front cover.

Below the banner and image the page is split into two columns.  The left hand colums is made up of a title whcih is made up for a small rectangle and below that there is the page list, also in a rectange, but in a different colour.  The left hand column contain the 'features' of the magazine, which means that the article are new for this edition, and the right hand columns contains the 'regulars' which appear in the magazine every week.