Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When first planning my magazine, I stuck to all of the conventions which make magazines much more recognizable for example:

1. Conventionally speaking, I have kept my masthead at the top of the front page and also top the left which follows the norms of how magazines are usually edited reason being that in shops when being sold there wont be enough space to show the whole front page and have to overlap several of the magazines meaning that even when this happens, Any magazine will still be noticeable and representative of the whole magazine.

However this wasn’t my original plan as firstly I intended of having the Masthead in the centre of the page with the effect that someone had ripped the page to reveal the masthead, this looked like this.

But because my Photoshop skills wasn’t enhanced enough to reach the effect I wanted and it wasn’t as easy as I first thought which made me rethink and realise that by challenging the conventions it has to be perfect in order for you to have that change that could be possible, although not everyone likes change; Which again made me adapt my masthead to use the convention of it being on top shown through Number 1.

One way in which I developed the conventions would be that most mastheads include some sort of sign or design which takes place of one of the letters but also relates to the magazine at hand, I went for more a simple and clean look and let the font relate to my magazine. I also slanted to masthead which isn’t what you normally see when looking at different magazine mastheads.

1. Another convention which I used would be including a Medium close up as the main image of my front cover, which most magazines do and the reasons why I did is because even though its following conventions, its still representative of my music style which is what the magazine is based on.

2. Usually when looking at a Rock Music magazine, on the double page spread you would see several different shots of the one person/band that the article is written about all showing different poses, or different angles all representing them in a different way. I followed this convention by taking several different pictures of the 2 people in the band in which I wrote the article on and placing them in my double page spread.

3. I also developed the convention of columns which is usually noticed on all articles however based on the positioning of my images, the columns would have been to thin in width making columns not appropriate although I overcame this by splitting the article across the double page, metaphorically making the line dividing the pages the line dividing the article making it visually seem like columns.

4. One similarity I noticed throughout most Rock magazine contents page would be the simplicity of listing what is included in the magazine, I have used the convention of having a name related to certain parts of the magazine which are there every week which jump across several pages, as well as the featured this week. I have also developed it by having small summaries of what is included within the main subheadings which aren’t a normal convention.

5. Another convention I have followed would have to be the images used on the contents page which shows more than one group interviewed for the magazine, however I have developed it by having more than one picture of each band which isn’t usually seen, the reasons why are so that I am giving the audience more on each band which initially should want to read about them and get them interested and even start listening to their music.
   
   
   6. One main convention of Rock music in itself would be that it targets Caucasian males, I have gone Against that convention by using Black models for my magazine which in itself is going against what would normally be expected of a rock magazine. My intent is to give those who are not Caucasian and who do enjoy the music a platform and let them have their chance of making it in the industry, By making this choice i could be creating a Change.