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

1.  The Front Cover

My front cover generally conforms to the code of conventions of a music magazine as the layout provides a centre stage for the feature article. I decided to use cell lines to inform the reader of other bands that are featured in the magazine, but I didn’t give any information about the article for these bands. I also conformed to the conventions by adding little things like a bar code, the date, the price and the issue number.

I decided that the main image should obscure the masthead because it gives the idea that the magazine is established and the audience would be familiar with it. This effect is conventional to many established music magazines (see pictures)

The main image on my front cover appeals to the target audience as it has both males and females. The two males seem quite serious, appealing to the more mature reader, but the female seems less serious, appealing to the younger, less serious reader. I took a number of photos but decided to use this image because they are close together showing they are a band but the female is at the front, identifying she is the ‘frontwoman’ of the band. Bands with three members often pose this way with the singer at the front (see pictures).

I also manipulated the image using Paint Shop Pro. I removed the background as I wanted their heads to obscure the masthead, to make it follow the code of conventions, without removing it completely from the cover. I also manipulated the subsidiary images because the backgrounds of the images did not fit with the rest of the front cover.

1.  The Contents Page

The function of any contents page is to allow the audience to use the magazine in a non-linear way. This is one of the ways in which a magazine is able to be an active medium. My contents page is based on an established music magazine, as I wanted it to be conventional and easy to use. I chose to take inspiration from the contents page in Kerrang.

As you can see my contents page does not have an image to draw the reader in like most conventional established music magazines because I felt that having an image would only draw the reader’s attention to one article instead of the many articles in this issue of the magazine.

On the left hand side I decided to use a band finder that is very conventional in established music magazines although Kerrang is not one of them.

I have used an image of my double page spread to draw the reader’s attention towards the main article of the magazine which is very conventional in music magazines.

The other subsidiary images on my contents page are images drawing the reader’s attention to the live band reviews. I used images I took myself at live gigs.

For these subsidiary images I did not use Paint Shop Pro like I did for the main image on my front cover, but I did tilt the pictures slightly because I wanted to make the pictures look like they were pinned up on a wall.

1 The Double Page Spread

I improved my first attempt at producing a double page spread by following the colour scheme of the magazine and making the title and the article much clearer. On my first attempt I decided to use the same image that is on my front cover but when I altered the title to make it clearer it blocked the image. Also on my first attempt you couldn’t see the article clearly in places, so I created boxes around the article that followed my colour scheme and now it is much clearer to read. Here you can see the comparison between the two attempts:

First Attempt

Final Attempt

The colour scheme I chose in my final double page spread coincides with the front cover and contents page as the colours yellow, red & black recur throughout my magazine.

The font I used for the title of my double page spread is the same font I used throughout my magazine. As you can see I put the name of the magazine ‘Overdrive’ on every page because it is conventional method in established music magazines, and also I put the website for the magazine on the bottom of the double page spread to show that ‘Overdrive’ magazine is an established multi-platform product, and it is also conventional in music magazines.

The content of my double page spread has question and answer sections and also has an in-depth article about the band’s year. I have created a small introduction that tells the reader some information about the band at the beginning of the article as it is a conventional method in music magazines. I decided to use one main pull quote “We are family now” but I also used pull quotes throughout the article to tell the reader the bands opinion as a fan like myself would like to know the bands thoughts. The title of the double page spread ‘Heads & Tails on their last train home’ I used because they are a welsh rock band like ‘Lostprophets’ who had a single called ‘Last Train Home’.

I used 5 images in my double page spread. I used one main image which takes up the whole page and I used 4 images as a collage on the top of the second page. I tried to make the pictures look like personal photos the band took themselves as I took inspiration from a Kerrang double page spread as you can see below.