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

In this slide I am comparing my contents page to Kerrang’s contents page. Like Kerrang I have a bold headline clearly stating that it is the contents page. One of the challenges I face is that I used text to influence my main story rather than a large image. I have used small images which again have borders around them to continue the house style I created. The headline I used for the main story stands out from other articles which will entice readers to look at it. I have designed my contents page stylistically to compete with magazines in the same genre. I chose subjects such as reviews and albums to cover, as these relate to the important features of a music magazine. I have used attractive subheadings and a well organised layout to create a professional magazine.

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

The way in which my media product challenges the forms and conventions of real media products is by my significant house style. Many magazines such as Kerrang and NME have a noticeable house style. My house style is the white masthead with the black space above that creates room for an attractive tag line. I have put borders round my images to give it a more organised and professional look. Whilst looking at the design to similar magazines I noticed that Kerrang’s front page has a sort of messy look about it yet still remains to look professional. I have aligned my images so they are neat but not too neat as this is a rock magazine so I feel everything has to be a bit wacky.
I have used bold headlines such as “TNT are back” which will grab my readers attention. Also I have “free posters” on the front cover which will subconsciously say to the reader that this magazine is a great buy.

Final Main Task

Final Main Task

1) Front cover
2) Contents page
3) Double page spread

Publishers of Magazines

BAUER MEDIA

In our lesson we looked at 2 different publishers of media. The first one we looked at was Bauer Media. Here are some facts:

- Europes largest privatley owned publisher
- 230 magazines in 15 countries as well as online, TV and radio station
- January 2008 following aquasition of Emap business's
- Employs 6,400 people and has 2007 turnover of 1.79 billion Euro's.

Their mission statement is - "To connect audiences with excellent content through our broad multitouch brand platforms."

Some of the media published by Bauer are:

- Kiss FM
- Magic FM
- The Box (TV)
- Kerrange magazine
- Heat

IPC MEDIA

Some facts about IPC media are:

-Not alot of music magazines ( A major magazine they have is NME)
- UK only
- Small audience for small magazines
- Magazines only, not online or radio

Both of these media publishers are extremely different. Bauer is international and therefore would be an excellent choice to go with as my magazine could be published all round the world and become more and more popular. However the likelyhood of this happening when the competition between simular genres of my magazine such as Kerrang, are quite minimal. IPC media is UK only and suits many small magazines. It is also only magazines so this is its main focus whereas Bauer media has TV and radio also. My magazine would compete nicely with IPC media as the only real competition would be NME. Although this is a well known and popular magazine, I feel mine would attract a simular audience.

I would have to choose IPC media if i were to write to one of them. This is because although Bauer media has more attributes I feel the sheer size of the business would hide my potentially good magazine and therefore it would be wasted. As IPC media contempts with small magazines it is more likely to be handle with more care and attention.

Preliminary Task - Returned

I recieved my preliminary task back with feedback from my teacher.

The feedback I received was as follows

- Mast head needs to be more separate.

- Keep the boxed images throughout.

- Cineworld coupon looks like a caption.

- No continuity with contents and cover.

- Different Mast head on contents page.

- Different Borders used on contents page.
- Different Font on contents page.


This feedback helped me realise the importance of a house style and the continuity throughout a magazine. I have considered what I would have done differently and I feel i would have corrected all of the above. I would keep the same colour scheme as it is the St.Marks Colours and I believe it fits. I like the images and I would not have done any different editing to them.

My contents page looked good when i was designing it however again after studying it all the flaws started appearing. I would probably completely scrap this page and start again if I had to. I would make sure that the house style is kept from the front page. I would insure the logo and masthead were in the same places and also borders around the images. I am happy with the images and the content but completely rearrange the layout.

Photography Editing

This is my orginal photo that I took with my models. After studying the photo on photoshop I decided that I would crop the image to only display the model on the right. I decided this because I thought it was more threatening and was more realistic to be in a rock magazine.

In order to crop the image I placed it in photoshop and used the magetic lasso tool to go around the right hand model. This tool works on find the difference between 2 different coloured pixes and drawing a line through them.

After many minutes and steady hand, I had an outline of the image I wanted. I selected 10 px Feather. This is to erase the image's hard edges and make it more opaque around the edges.

This is my final image that i will use on my front cover. I have made the edges of the image soft using the feathing tool and I have also increased the size of the image so that it will fit onto my A4 design on the front cover.

This image will work well as I have studied other magazines and I feel it suits the rock criteria, scary, out of the ordinary and eye catching.

My Models

I spoke with my models today and thankfully they agreed to assist me in my photoshoot. I had to speak to various other people so I could could organise the location and props I would need in order to make the shots look realistic.


Because I also studying Performing Arts I had access to the lighting in our school drama studio. From this i was able to add coloured gells into some lanterns and set up as shot as if it was on a stage. I had my models dressed in the typical clothes of that normal rock artist would be, shirts with skinny ties. I had one of the models shape his hair into a wacky but also agressive look.

I was pleased with how my models turned out on the day as they fitted with the shot I took. I arranged some green and red gels shining down on my models. I also borrowed a microphone stand and microphone for one of the models and one of the models brought their own guitar.

The shots I took are what I will be using for my front page, contents page and double page spread. I'm happy with the way they turned out because I do not need to do much editing in photoshop. I feel that the green and red tints in some of the pictures provide a good feeling as to they models are on a stage in a concert.