Evaluation Task 1

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

Above, my final front cover of my music magazine, and also, a current version of 'Indie' magazine; NME. When I compare the two, there's obviously some similarities, however in places I have also challenged the conventions that NME use. My main masthead is challenging NME's current conventions, as mine goes nearly all the way across the top of the page, where as NME's is just in the top left hand corner of the page, and they have just a three letter name: NME, standing for New Musical Express. My name however, Cassette, is one that has a meaning itself, I chose this name, as Cassette's are something that were used for years and are now seen as being 'retro'. I thought about the 80's and what they had and brought musically. I then came up with the name 'Cassette' as Cassette's were used a lot from the 70's right through until the late 80's. I believe that this name is catchy, and as it's only a short word that hopefully people will remember. 

My page layout is similar to NME's, I have the The Antidotes, at the bottom of the page, like The Vaccines on NME's. I also have a little line underneath, talking about the band featuring on the front page. I challenge the regular conventions in the way that I have a bar across the bottom of the page, listing band names featuring in the magazine. You do sometimes see the bars at the bottom, however, I haven't put mine right at the bottom, I have it slightly further up, which I believe works very well and makes the bar more eye catching. I have also challenged the regular conventions of having the barcode in the bottom third, in either the left or right hand corner, I have however put it into the top right hand corner, this was keeping it out of the way and not drawing any attention to it. I have stuck to the convention of having my issue number, date and price underneath the masthead of the magazine, as I believe this looks better than having it anywhere else. My main image is also going along with current music magazine conventions, as it takes up the whole front cover, with them being the focus point. I have however challenged the conventions of having other pictures on the front cover. I felt that without other pictures, it would only draw more attention to the starring band. A convention that I felt that I had to stick with, was to have names of other things included in the magazine at either side of my magazine. This helps to get other people interested, if maybe they don't like the main starring band. 

I believe that straight away from looking at my magazine, you can tell what genre of music my band are; Indie. You wouldn't really get any, for example, Rap artists dressing in these sorts of clothes, and wearing them in this way. I believe that the expressions that my band are pulling really shows an Indie band, naive yet still arrogant. 

The camera angle I used for my front cover was to have my band looking slightly down at the camera. This shows the fact that they do feel that they are above everyone else, and they know they are good. However, I didn't want it to be a too obvious convention, as I wouldn't want people to not pick the magazine up and not want to buy it, just because they felt the front cover stars look to arrogant etc.

The colour scheme of my magazine was Red, Blue, White & Black. Usually music magazines have a 3 colour palette, however I feel that the 4 colour palette works well, therefore chose to use it. All of my fonts are bold, and are in appropriate colours to what colour background they are on, they therefore stand out very well, and are all very readable. Nothing clashes on my front page, everything fits nicely. My music magazine does have a similar colour palette to NME magazine, however I've challenged the 3 colour palette, and also i've gone for richer blues and reds.