Evaluation Activity 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of music magazines)


My magazine I thinks conforms to the conventions of existing magazines. The masthead 'Stream' needed to stand out so that it would be noticed when in the shelf of a shop, the issues afterwards would also keep with this theme to create consistence that would hopefully make the magazine look iconic in the near future. Cover lines alongside the main image are also commonly found on most music magazines with it being a monthly magazine I wanted it to have a Q magazine sort of feel which focused on with the contents page. I also wanted it to have conventions and inspirations from other magazines such as NME which also has a very well known masthead. The colour palette (black, blue and white) is kept to 3 colours which a lot of other magazines follow the same rule, this remained consistent throughout the pages. The band index I included in my contents page is inspired from the index that appears in NME's  contents page. I wanted readers to be able to find the artists they would most likely want to read about without having to search through the whole magazines, this way the readers would not get bored and stay more interested in the magazine.
There are some elements within my product though that I feel don't apply to conventions set by already established magazines magazines. Firstly the genre my magazine focussed on is Electronic the magazines that I have taken most inspiration from tend not to feature my particular genre. This is why I wanted to focus on the technology side of the music as well as the club element. This makes my magazine different from the current magazines that would probably feature something different each month.

Some generic key conventions present in this magazine cover are within my front cover as well. The masthead is well displayed and effective also in the top right corner a label for a competition is used. I also incorporated this into my front cover as well it was in a different position however. Another convention that is the same is the positioning of the bar code. But the differences are that there are cover lines on both sides of the cover whereas on mine they are placed on the right side only. And finally the main image though have a similar facial expression and stance on the cover my image is on the left side and fills the page mainly.