Evaluation question 1 - AS Media

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

My magazine uses lots of the forms and conventions of real music magazines such as titles, feature stories, and the bar code.

 I tried to add as many conventions to my magazine as I could so that it looked as much like a real magazine as possible. I especially did this on the front cover as that is the first thing people will see when they look at my magazine. I tried to make the feature stories relevant and what the audience want to read, this is mainly things like exclusive interviews with big artists and album reviews of big name artists which I have done to catch the readers eye.

I kept the colour scheme as earth and wood colours as this relates back to the acoustic instruments that are used in the singer-songwriter genre, this is a colour scheme that is used in many singer-songwriter and acoustic genre magazines.

The title/masthead looks hand written which makes the magazine look more like it is in the singer-songwriter genre as it looks like the writing that the artist would be doing while writing a song. The style of the font also appeals more to the younger audience which my magazine is targeted at.

The double page spread also follows the conventions of a real music magazine as it has columns that go around the artist photo, This shows that the artist is the center of this story and that all the attention should be on him as the interview is all about his rise to fame.

The first paragraph that introduces the artist is much more bold than the rest, this grabs the readers attention and introduces them to the artist and hypes the artist up so they reader will want to read it more. The first letter of the paragraph also stands out, this also catches the reader attention and stops the pages from looking boring.

On the contents page I have put page numbers next to the stories on the list of stories, but also on the pictures of the main stories, this would make it easier for readers to find the story they want if they see it on the picture first.

The pictures on the contents page are bold and bright which would grab the readers attention, they are also pictures that the reader would recognize, so they would want to read the story more if they know the artists in the pictures.