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

I think my media uses forms and conventions of real media products in many ways. One way in which it does this is in the title. When designing my title, I purposely gave it a rough, 'broken' looking kind of font, often used in magazines aiming at a similar audience (Rock fans) such as the title for Kerrang! magazine, amongst others. I think my choice of models also reflects real media products as their appearances are similar to that of artists that appear in music magazines, i.e. boys with long hair, girls with bright hair, which is another use of real media forms and conventions. Also, my use of strap lines, banners and stickers are all common in real music magazine. As well as this, my house style which i used throughout my contents and double page spread to show they were the same magazine and show continuity, common to many real magazines. I did this by keeping the bottom strap pattern, the page numbers, and many fonts, the same. Also, I used the classic big speech marks and bold lettering/capitals for titles etc. used in many magazines, also simple things such as writing in columns are conventions of real magazine products.

I developed my colour scheme from ones similar to that of NME by using the bright red to catch attention, but developed this by using it alongside grey throughout, to make it more unique to my magazine. I also developed my title from magazines such as NME or Q by making it short and snappy, but developed it by not using initials to do this. This makes it catchy, easy and memorable. Another way I developed forms of other magazines is by making the strap-lines, banners and stickers etc. my own, for example including my own information specific to my genre of magazine, i.e. the bands specified.

I think my contents page challenges that of traditional magazine forms, as the background is all one image, instead of having many sections boxed off like other magazines. I did this as I wanted to use the surgical curtain as a prop and also as a blank space where all my content information could be put, therefore making use of the image.