My Final Evaluation

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

In some ways, my media product is similar to already existing media products, in that I used a darker colour scheme to reflect that my magazine was based for a more alternative crowd in mind. However, because there are brighter elements within my magazine, it is furthering this reflection in that it was aimed at a particular social group that conforms to similar colour schemes within their fashion. The type of image I used for my front cover is a young, rock girl – making her into a role model. This convention challenges real media products, as it is not that common to see a female rock star as an audience’s role model, let alone a young one. However, I chose that image because I wanted the audience to be able to relate to the magazine to help attract their interest. Though I based the content of my magazine for both males and females, all of my used images have a female model. I did this because females largely populate the subculture that I chose to address, which was scene kids. All of my images are Medium close-ups, which is a common convention of alternative magazines such as Kerrang.
I named my magazine Kaleidoscope because it translates as: "a continually shifting pattern, scene, or the like" meaning it makes sense to describe my magazine as it is about music which is an environment that is constantly changing.

Front Cover: I would argue that successful features of my front cover would be a clean organised layout - as the front cover does not appear cluttered with information and all the fonts are easily readable and clear. I also think that the front cover is interesting and invites the audience to pick it up and read it due to it's cover lines and the model's stare, which makes the reader feel like they're personally being addressed when they see her looking at them. I also think the straps with their ripped effect look visually pleasing, adding a splash of colour as well as helping to convey extra information easily. I also think the ripped sticker effect works well as it connotes that my magazine is alternative, and not prim and proper like other mainstream pop magazines would be. I think my main image looks really good, with her eyes gazing at the reader – her outfit conforms to scene kid conventions well and she has an alluring expression on her face, drawing the reader’s in. It is also very clear that this is a music magazine due to her props. I established the house style of this page, with the title of the magazine being in sketchathon with all the other fonts being impact or arial depending on how much I felt that piece of text needed to stand out. The house style colours established here are a light turquioise, as well as obeying to the usual red & black combination that other alternative music magazines use such as Kerrang and Rocksound.
Contents: My contents page is also visually pleasing, with appropriate titles and text. I decided to go against the usual conventions of filling the contents page will plenty of images like they do in Kerrang, as I felt my audience would appreciate more textual content. I feel that the images I did use however, really stand out and help draw the page together, tieing in the house style colours together in their clothes – as well as being visually pleasing to look at in their own rights as well. I think that my layout is very effective, and far superior to my rejected contents page I had developed before, as this time the cover lines and titles are on the right hand side of the page, obeying forms and conventions set out by other magazines due to the typical reader’s tendancy to flick through pages and only see the right hand side of pages. Also, I included an advertisement at the bottom which stands out and is based off the typical kind of advert you would see a magazine use on their contents page to try and reinforce their fanbase loyaltes.
Double Page Spread: My Double Page Spread adheres to the standard codes and conventions of an interview, as the gutters are present and of an appropriate size, with 3 columns used to display my information below a large bolded kicker. I have two pull quotes, that use the house style colour palette and standard font of impact, and because of the bright colour they really do draw the reader in. I used the same style for my masthead as in my contents page, which I think really makes the magazine feel whole rather than just 3 separate pages that could be from anywhere. While this page is mostly plain, I feel that it’s simple and quite modest nature really does emphasize the small details like the guitar plectrum shaped end stop I used, as well as drawing the reader’s eyes to the model and maintaining them there.