Evaluation Q1

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product uses and follows conventions of real media products as well as challenging them.when making my magazine I wanted to follow conventions of real music magazines. This was as well as trying to change some aspects so that my magazine would be slightly different from the rest.

I started by looking at many music magazines and finding ones similar to the magazine I wanted to create. The magazines that I found were most alike what I wanted were Q and NME.

I thought these magazines were similar to mine mainly because they're focused on targeting British audiences, which is something I wanted (as my magazine focuses on British rock and alternative). Genre wise, these magazines were similar to mine too. I didn't want to follow or British rock magazines like Kerrang or Mojo because that's not the style of music featured in my magazine. I therefore made sure that I followed conventions belonging to these magazines. The first thing I followed was the use of a medium close up on the front cover. I found this is common with magazines f this genre on not only the front cover but in the double page spread too. Another thing is also looked at was the placing of my magazine's logo. I needed to put it in the top left corner, however this was a problem because my magazine's name is six letters long compared to NME's three and Q's one. There was no way of putting the name on the top left without it looking squashed, messy and unclear.In my final product I have the title "ANTHEM" all across the top of the front cover. This then became a convention I had to challenge. 

One further way I have challenged a media convention is by not using a plain background on my front cover. I have found that in/on magazines similar to mine, the background on the front covers is just plain white often with a shadow.

I thought doing this was too simple. Although it is clearly effective for these magazines within my genre, I don’t think it is particularly eye catching. I also wanted my magazine to clearly be a British rock magazine so to me it seemed logical to put the Union Flag (union jack) in place where the white background would typically be. This also meant I could follow the convention of having a colour scheme (red, white and blue, with parts in yellow so the text is clear). The Union flag idea also means that I can have the convention of a recurring theme in my magazine, this is the use of a union flag on the front cover, contents page and double page spread.