The media product developed was a rock/alternative music magazine called "B-Side." The magazine uses conventions found in other music magazines, such as a large header across the top of the front cover using red and white colors, the main image bleeding through the header, and sell lines advertising interior features. However, some elements challenge conventions to attract different audiences, for example including a mid-shot on the cover rather than a close-up of an artist, and using a more mature color scheme and layout on the contents page. The double page spread also uses a pull quote as the title rather than an artist name pun to introduce a new artist. Overall, the magazine incorporates both standard industry conventions and some unique design

1. Qu1) - In what ways does your
media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?

2. • The media product I developed was a rock/
alternative music magazine named “B-side.”
The magazine uses and fits the conventions of
music magazines and magazines in general.

3. Front Cover
• On my front cover I used a very large header, spread
across the width of the top of the page. The colours of
the header are red and white. I also had a bleed through
from the main image over the header. Most of the
magazines I researched into featured either this, or the
bleed of the picture going behind the header (as
pictured.) NME and Kerrang! (both rock magazine,) also
feature a similar colour scheme to mine in their headers/
logos (blacks, whites, and reds.)
• On my front cover I also featured the mid shot (of the girl
in the double page spread,) as the main image. Although
this did fit in with conventions enough so that it was
clearly still a music magazine, it was more typical, I
found, when a magazines main selling point was one
artist, to have a close up rather than a mid pressumably
to add more emphasis to the artist. The reason I did
this, however, was to add more emphasis to her body
and to the prop she is holding (the guitar.) This is
because the articles main focus is her sexuality (the fact
she is a woman,) and her music (hence the guitar.)

4. • In regards to props, I used a guitar on the
front cover. Lots of music magazines did
include the artists holding props such as
instruments, however, these were
meanly magazines such as “Kerrang!”
whose target audience is much younger
than some of the other magazines I
researched into. My target audience
(although ranging up to people as old as
21,) started at 15 year olds, so for this
reason I thought it would be suitable to
include one and I could attract the older
buyers with different features.
• I also used sell-lines at the bottom of my
front cover to advertise other features
within the magazine without
overcrowding the page. These can be
seen in many other magazines of similar
genre.

5. • I also included the buzz word
“exclusive” in bold on my title on
my front cover – introducing the
pull quote for the main image. Buzz
words were found in similar styles
on almost all of the magazines I
researched into. (B-Side, Q
magazine, NME, Kerrang!) However
as shown below, mine wasn’t as
bold, and the typography on mine
wasn’t as detailed and extravogent
as most of the others. This was
because I didn’t want to make my
page too overcrowded or details as
I wanted to attract a more mature
audience.

6. Contents page
• To compare my contents pages to others overall I’ve lined them up against
contents pages from the magazines “Mojo,” “Kerrang!” and “NME.”
• At first glance my contents page does fit in with the general conventions. As shown above, the
images are in line and the page numbers are juxtaposed with the images to create anchorage
and the titles have blocks of text behind them. However the others seem busier than mine;
hence it would appear, to make them fit in with the format of a real contents page more
efficiently I should have included more text and maybe considered an advertisement of an
editor’s letter. In my final audience feedback questionnaire, I also discovered that a significant
amount would have preferred my contents page if it had more images.

7. • The image (below,) shows a close-up of my the title to my contents page.
The title is around the same size as most others and is at the top of the
page, as usually seen. However, the colours of my contents page aren’t
usually found as I have split the page in half with red and white – I have
also inverted the fill and outline of the title. I think this fits in well with
my magazine as it makes it more edgy and gives it a more alternative
feel. I have also juxtaposed the logo of the magazine in the top left
corner, next to the title. I saw this in a few other magazines (but not
many,) such as NME (see above,) and thought the repetition of the logo
worked well to emphasise the magazine and make the top of the page
appear more full.
• The image to the right shows the other titles I included
in my contents page. The colour scheme and
typography (bold and in a larger font size than the other
text,) resembles the titles from NME and Kerrang!
shown on the right. However I only included two titles
in my contents page as I wanted to make it simple for
the reader to navigate to as in my research I discovered
lots of readers find contents pages too difficult to follow
easily.

8. Double Page Spread
• To analyse how similar my double page spread looked in comparison to
the ones within my research, I have shown them together below:

9. • My double page spread doesn’t particularly resemble any of these specifically
as the second and third image are from Mojo and Vibe, who have a reasonably
old target audience, (Mojo’s target audience are generally over the age of 21.)
These double page spreads, I noticed, tend to be a little void of colour
(featuring colour scheme like greyscale, and simply laid-out with little images.
The bottom right DPS belongs to Kerrang magazine, and is much different to
the other two. It contains much more colour (some of which clash,) a wider
range of typography and numerous images. Kerrang! Have a much younger
audience, starting at 15. As my target readership will vary (but start at 15, like
Kerrang’s,) I tried to fit the conventions of both of these formats.
• The image shows my title which is also a pull quote
from the article. As you can see from the images
above, most of the DPSs in my research had titles
(some including pulling techniques such as puns.)
However, as my artist was a new one – I didn’t think a
pun on her name or a title about her would be
particularly enticing for a reader – so instead I used a
pull quote as the title for the article, which I think
worked well. I also made the text almost image like
(over blocks of black) and the quotation marks
extremely big – this effected the graphology and made
the appearance much more attractive.

10. General Conventions
• All the pages of my magazine also featured some general magazine
conventions that were found across each of the publishers and
magazines I researched.
- Barcode and price on front cover – practical for
selling.
- Page numbers at the bottom of each page – excluding
the contents and FC. These are sometimes found in
other places (Eg. The top or the corners) but I wanted
to make them clear and easy to find, whilst leaving
room for other items on the page.
- A4 paper – All of the magazines I looked into were A4
(presumably because this was a practical size – small
enough to hold comfortably and big enough to be able
to read the text.