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

The title of my article is ‘JJ’s six Strings’ I think this is effective because its short and uses alliteration. The title, pull quote, and questions all fit in with my colour scheme of yellow, white, red and black that I used throughout my magazine.

I originally used the same main image that is on my front cover but I decided to use this image because it’s a long shot and includes the models whole body and fits better on the page. The content of my article appeals to my target audience because it is written in a code of language they are used to. The question and answer format is simple and easy to follow, it also includes questions that they are likely to want to ask the artist. The introduction is informative and provides description of the artist and his background.
I used the pull quote ‘I was in shock I couldn’t believe Eric Clapton wanted to work with me!’ as it appeals to my target audience, who are likely to be fans of Eric Clapton and relate to Jordan’s surprise and joy at being asked to work with him. I chose to use a subsidiary image to feature with a quotation from a Radio 1 DJ about Jordan’s album. With a subsidiary title ‘Radio 1 DJ Ella Jones’, I have seen this used on real articles in music magazines.

Here are some examples of real magazine double page spreads that share similar conventions to mine.

These double page spreads both have the main image on the left with a subsiduary image and text on the right. The first example has a Radio 1 DJ's quote and image, i used a similar feature to this in my article. Also the first example uses text near the bottom left of the page this is not conventional however i have chosen to use a similar layout as this example.

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

My contents page follows conventions of a real music magazine contents page. The main image is of the main artist on the front cover and article of my magazine, focussing ‘Jordan Jones’ centrally in all the pages of my magazine. Also it is the same image I used in my article. I included three subsidiary images and situated on the left side of my contents page with their page numbers. This layout attracts the audience to the images, and page numbers of the artists focussed on in the subsidiary images. On the right side of my conetnts page i listed names of artists that would be featured in the rest of my magazine to inform the reader of all the artists included. I alternated colours of yellow and black outlines on the font to make it more conventional as i have seen this done in other music magazine contents pages.
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I did not manipulate the subsidiary images on my contents page as I feel the backgrounds are effective. Especially the first image of the artist ‘Dan Johnson’ with the graffiti in the background and the model is sitting down which is an unconventional pose. I used Paint Shop Pro to remove the background of the main image and left it white to fit in with the colour scheme of my magazine. The cover story sell line in a circle and the date of the issue are often used in real magazine contents pages.

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

The colour scheme I chose to use of  black, red, yellow and white is conventional. As black, white and red are popular colours in real magazines. I chose these colours because I had seen them used so often in other magazines. However I used yellow, a less popular colour, to make my magazine unique, appealing and familiar to readers. The colour yellow goes well with my masthead ‘UNPLUGGED’ and compliments the other colours also represents the acoustic genre my magazine covers and appeals to. My choice in the masthead and colour scheme was influenced by the feedback from my questionnaire which I did as preliminary research before producing my front cover. Here are some examples of a similar colour scheme from NME.

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

The main image covers part of the masthead, I did this because it creates an idea that the magazine is well established because reader already knows the masthead and will then focus straight on the main image, I found this to be very common in real music magazines because it gives more attention to the main article. My main image is of a young male holding a guitar. This image appeals to my target audience because he is an image the typical reader of my magazine. He is dressed casually, plays the guitar, is young and male and this similar to the audience I am targeting. I edited the photo by removing the background because it distracted from the image and I wanted the reader to focus on the main image and not on the background. The subsidiary images have not been manipulated as I the background on the two shot was plain and the second image was effective. Here is an example of KERRANG magazine with the main image covering the masthead.
                                       

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

My front cover conforms to the conventions of a real magazine, because the layout focuses on the main article with a main image of the artist and title of the artists name stands out across the middle of the page. I used subsidiary images which are conventional for music magazines. I chose to use two subsidiary images to fit the layout of my front cover as it was similar to other magazines I had looked at. I have included different sell lines which give information about the contents to make the magazine more appealing also because this is used a lot on real magazine front covers. My front cover generally conforms to the conventions of real music magazines.

                   The layout of my front cover was altered during the process of making it I originally had the subsidiary images to the bottom left of the cover however in order to add more sell lines in the ‘Plus’ section I moved the pictures and placed the ‘Plus’ sell lines in the bottom left corner as I felt it was more effective and conventional to that of real music magazine front covers.