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

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

My product uses forms and conventions of real media products quite regularly as I thought this would give it a more professional look. As my magazine is a mainstream one, I thought it would be suitable to make the magazine look like regular magazine so people could get an idea the magazine is mainstream when they glance at the front cover. I have put my masthead right at the top of the page in big, red capital letters; I copied this from other successful mainstream music magazines. I tried to make my image the main attraction as this is also what magazines like ‘Q’ does. I did this by keeping the writing on the cover quite basic so it didn’t take much attention away from the image. I have a similar colour scheme to ‘Q’.  The colours red, black and white seem to suit a mainstream magazine as they are popular colours used regularly.  I know there are plenty of mainstream music magazines around but I know there is a big audience for them so my magazine could be successful.

I was quite heavily influenced by ‘Q’ magazine as it is covers the genre of music I listen to most and I like the design of it; the lay out and colour scheme. I also like how the ‘Q’ is always in the top left of the front cover so that customers can recognise the magazine instantly. My magazine will always have a big, clear masthead as it is an unknown, upcoming magazine.

As hundreds of other magazines, Q follows the basic convention of placing the magazine title in the top left of the page; however Juice is in the middle at the top. Also, my research exposed the fact that many magazines rotate the barcode 90 degrees in the bottom right of the page, to add more content space. Juice did not follow this convention as I didn’t want it to collide with other text on the front cover.

Another convention I gave to my magazine, Juice, was competitions and freebies for the readers. There is a Bruno Mars competition and posters of famous celebrities for the readers to take out and use. I liked this idea as I think this could engage the readers and persuade them to buy other issues of Juice.