Forms and Conventions

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

 

Cover Page

Magazines in general, including music based products, often follow a set list of conventions in order to make the magazine look its best. Although there are no other products focused on the same subject as mine, I chose to follow these conventions in order to make my magazine look like a real publication.

 

BBC Music Magazine

To help me, I looked at this magazine cover to see what conventions were used that I can apply onto my cover. The most important convention is the masthead. The masthead is the name of the magazine that is usually at the top of the cover, in a bold, large font so that it is instantly recognisable. Most magazines keep their masthead in the same place, regardless of what is on the front of the magazine. This means that sometimes the main cover image is partially obstructing our view of the masthead. However because the magazine is instantly recognisable by its masthead, we can easily see what the masthead says; meaning we know what magazine it is. This is especially true in well developed magazines. My magazine has the same use of the masthead. It is placed near the top, covering the whole width of the page in an easily recognisable font. Although this is only my 'third issue', I chose to have the model partially obscuring my masthead as I believe my magazine will be recognisable by its readers by then as the masthead's font is the same font used by the Eurovision Song Contest, a programme my readers will be very familiar with.

Cover lines are also used on almost every magazine. The cover line tends to show the reader what the main article in the magazine is going to be so it has to stand out from the strap lines which are generally smaller, less important pieces of information that give an idea of what will be contained in the magazine. In this particular BBC Music magazine, the cover line is an exclusive interview with Sarah Chang. To make it stand out, it is in the same colour as the masthead which subconciously draws your eye from the masthead, straight to the coverline. In my magazine, the cover line is a different font, colour and has a different background to the straplines. Although its the same size, it stands out as it uses bright colours which match the logo above it, and its the only one on that side of the cover. In Europe, we tend to read left to right so having the cover line on the left means that it will be the first thing the viewer will read after the masthead.

 



EuroPhoria (named after the winning
song from the previous competition)



Other conventions used in both my magazine and other magazines include the main photo, and the use of smaller photos to compliment the strap lines, colour scheme and selling line. I used one main photograph on my cover which is directly linked to my main cover line 'Lauren!' I only chose one main image so people can't be distracted from the main story by other smaller images. Althought there are smaller images on my cover, they are miniscule in comparison. My colour scheme fits in with the subject of the magazine: Eurovision. This year, the contest will be held in Malmö, Sweden. The Swedish flag consists of yellow and blue, hence the heavy presence of these colours throughout my magazine. The selling line of my magazine is above the masthead, which is less common in general but some magazines still do it. It gives a little statement which is trying to persuade people to chose my magazine over others. In my case, if they want a Eurovision Song Contest magazine, they will have to pick mine as mine is the only one out there at the moment.

 

Ways in which my cover differ from most include the subject of the magazine (as mentioned earlier) and the Masthead and selling line. The selling line features the actual name of the magazine. ESCNow! EuroPhoria is the name of the 'series' as it were for that year. After the next contest, the magazine masthead will feature a name to do with the winning song, artist or country, which will also mean all the colour schemes will change aswell. This is a different approact and this could be a disadvantage as readers may like to recognise the magazine from its colour, however the only way they'll be able to tell would be the ESCNow! logo in the top corner, which to aid readers, will always be situated there.

 

Contents Page

Contents pages always follow similar conventions to cover pages. Font, colour and similar designs are used throughout the magazine. I have used similar fonts however my colour scheme is very different. I went for black and red colours to make the contents page stand out. I want my readers to turn the front page expecting to see more blue and yellow and when they see black and red they take another look to see why the colours change and in doing so, read more of the contents page and take in more information.

 

Many contents pages feature another image, often relating to the most important article in the magazine. Mine however follows an idea that I first noticed being used by the Radio Times