Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Use of Generic Conventions in my Product

In Sound fields I have tried to use as many forms and conventions of existing music magazines as possible. In common with all music magazines, Sound fields includes interviews with musicians, reviews and industry news; there are also competitions, links to its own website and listings, all found in magazines such as Q, Mojo, NME, Kerrang, Classic Rock.

I have adopted a house style of font and layout used throughout my magazine, including on the front cover. My font is 'aristra', used on the cover page for both masthead and cover lines, the contents page throughout and the titles and pull quotes on article pages. This gives the magazine structure and consistency.

Sound fields uses the conventional music magazine colours throughout of red, black and white. Many rock magazines seem to use these colours (Q, NME). This makes it recognisable as a music magazine but it is mainly because the colours are bold and striking that I chose them. It is a convention that most magazines have a recognisable and consistent colour scheme of some sort, even if it isn't red, black or white. I used these colours on my masthead, throughout the contents page and on my articles.

The cover of the magazine follows many conventions; the image is strong and in semi close-up, the masthead is easily identifiable, cover lines are legible from a distance, there is an emphasis on the left hand side of the cover for display reasons, a puff is used to offer something to the readers (the chance to win something for a competition) and strong links are formed for the contents page. A tagline is used underneath the masthead and it includes a barcode, price and date

The contents page echoes the cover in the use of a masthead, a convention in all magazines (not just music), the contents are clearly laid out, more images are used to entice the reader, along with intriguing pull quotes from the main stories and the layout is conventional; with text on the left hand third and images filling the rest of the page. Everything from the front cover is referenced on the contents page; the competition is echoed again, both these things are conventions.

The double page spread echoes the colour scheme and repeats the masthead format for its title. The conventions it uses are use of a sub-title (exclusive...) and an introduction to the article, along with credits of the interviewer and the photographer. Use of an almost full page image on the right hand side with just a pull quote and the main text on the left page with an additional small image follows conventional layout for a double page feature. It is conventional to repeat the cover image in the article as I have done. It is a convention of most magazines that interviews are accompanied by a close up image of the celebrity's face and I have included that feature.

I have used language typical of the music magazines I researched; informal but well structured and tried to make the content interesting, relevant and appealing to my target market.

Challenging conventions

My product breaks new ground because it is based on a genre that no other magazine has covered, festivals and live music. It also challenges other conventions of rock magazines on the market today by featuring a newcomer on the front cover. This would not be unusual for Sound fields as many artists/bands have a huge live following before they gain commercial success. I would expect my target market to recognise and be keen to learn more about newly emerging bands.

My magazine has a sense of hybrid identity, where there is a genre and a sub genre. The main genre in my magazine is music and the sub genre is live music.


Influences


My choice of colours is influenced strongly by Q magazine's instantly masthead and colour scheme. I have tried to make this my own but the similarities can be seen below.

The colour on Q's magazine is actually red, despite appearing orange.

         

As you can see, I used the influence of the three picture layout from the far right magazine. From the magazine in the centre, I used the coloured bands and stripe across the top to separate the text and from both I used the left third column layout to display my contents.

I took my influence of using the smaller figure on the left page from this edition of Mojo, where Thom Yorke seems to be pushing away the stereo equipment. I also took the idea of repeating the cover image on my article page from Q's Take That article below.