Evaluation question 1

Evaluation 1 – In What Ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In creating my media product, magazine. I made sure that I developed my work around already made real products in order to maintain a professional look and so that I could get an idea of what sells in the outside world and with this I would know how my magazine would be able to be successful. I also challenged some ideas of real magazines and made my magazine in different ways in order to keep it unique and make sure that it was the best It could possibly be. To be able to do this I carried out lots of research to get an idea of popular layouts and ideas for colour schemes and fonts in order to make my magazine stand out but also so I could show I have used successful elements from other magazines so that I know it would look as professional as possible and be successful.

For my Front Cover I gained many ideas from Vibe magazine. These ideas included the type of picture, who I used as my model, what poses they would do and most importantly how the text would be layed out around it, eventually deciding on black and red from a Beyoncé Vibe cover going around the image as I felt this gave the strongest look and was most eye catchy. I also adapted the way the main text is displayed large across the front page; however, in all but one of my magazines that I have researched the model is situated behind the name of the magazine. I decided to challenge this idea and use a border around the edge of my magazine name and place this in front of the model, I feel this has given the title a stronger image and makes it not only stand out from other magazines but it is more effective in grabbing peoples attention as it is bolder and would be easier to see for a customer, if buying the magazine and therefore I could potentially get more magazine sales.

In creating my Contents page I adapted ideas from looking at Glamour and Vibe magazine. It gave me lots of ideas about the way to layout my contents page and what to include in each section. As I knew that these were magazines from the target audience that I was looking at I also gained ideas of what the target audience of these types of magazines would want to read. I used the idea from Vibe magazine of the issue with Nicki Minaj to set out page with one large picture of my model to the side dressed within the theme of my magazine – e.g. risky and slightly provocative. I have also taken an idea from a different issue of the same magazine in which I used to layout my text as I fell the Nicki Minaj contents page text was not sufficiently layed out and I decided to set it out so I based it along the Ciara issue where they used headings and separated it so that it was easier to understand.

My double page spread was quite hard to create because I found it difficult to find general research before moving on to focused research, therefore I have limited research for this . However, one of the double page spreads that I found gave me some good ideas of how to layout my double page spread and what features to include on it. I found a very unique layout as I felt that a lot of my class mates were all focusing around the same area and many magazines also focused around the same ideas and layouts, I felt there was quite a generic look to magazines within society. After searching for ages I finally found a double page spread that suited my target audience and was individual. I used a double page spread featuring Solange Knowles and based my double paged spread around this. This is where I got the idea of the black and white border effect, the way in which the text is layed out and the magazine name in the corner. I also used the idea of having a brief introduction to the double page and introducing the artist before I move into my interview.