1: In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines?

To start off this evaluation of I will be assessing whether think that my title has been following the conventions of another magazine title or whether I have tried something different. For the title of my magazine I have tried to create it in a similar style to many other magazines as it will fit in with lots of other magazine titles. I have also tried to create the title in a colour which will stand out; a bold black colour would stand out from the rest of the colours. Some examples for the mast heads that I used also follow these conventions, but I also tried to integrate some changes in the typical format of the title but I did not think that it looked as effective as some of the other titles which followed the conventions. (Image of My Title) (Image of Popular Magazine Title)

Next I will be talking about the mise-en-scene of all of my images as I think that these can be considered as similar to some photographers and very different to others. I firstly decided to locate my photo shoot inside my house and this was not only because it was convenient for all of the models but I also had a large wall where I could have all the photo’s taken as it almost looked like a photo studio. I also used the garden as it brought the sense of nature into the images but I didn’t think that any of the images were as good as the ones inside so I did not use these in my final magazine. The inside setting is very similar to when people do photo shoots in studios and this would be relating to the conventions of the magazines as lots of magazines use their images from studios. I followed what other magazines were doing in these areas because I think that people would rather focus on the actual model rather than what is happening in the background and sometimes when they are set outside it could take some of the focus off of the model.

The props which I used had different relation to the typical props which would have been used in a photo shoot as I think that some of the props e.g. guitar would have been used in a stereotypical magazine but others e.g. headphones were quite different but had a better effect that some of the one which had been done quite a lot before. I think that some of my props challenged the theme of drum and bass but this made the magazine more interesting to be read as I covered a range of themes and even though many may say that a guitar has no relation to drum and bass, some people use a guitar as a background instrument for some songs which could show how it relates to the genre that I am creating the music magazine based around.

The lighting in my images was changed throughout lots of the images so that I could find a light which I thought was the best. After going through lots of different lighting I found that the best light was natural light as it did not look fake and it looked better than artificial light. This lighting is very different to what you would expect in a typical drum and bass magazine which shows when I have challenged what is in a typical magazine but I think that it worked out well as people would enjoy seeing the models (artists) in natural light rather than in light where they might not be able to recognise there face or who they are.

The type of shots which I used in my images and photo shoot are very similar to what you would find in a professional photo shoot as I wanted to make it look as though it was shot in a original photo studio by a photographer and I used a range of shots which are shown by the story board style drawings which display just a few of the shots which I was going to use in my photo shoot. The way that the audience relate with this range of camera shots and angles is that they will want a range which show different angles of the artists so that it shows their personality.

When I had taken the original photographs I decided to manipulate quite a few of them to see what effects would relate back to my target audience and the genre of drum and bass. I created the effect of darkness in quite a few of them so that it related to a nightclub feeling. This was following the conventions of other magazines because I knew that they audience enjoyed this sort of images because of the colours which I have used.

The people that I used for my photo shoot relates to my music genre and what the audience wanted as I featured people that I thought the audience would take a interest to because they are ‘upcoming artists’. I think the people that I used were conventional to my music magazine as I think that they had a style which relates to the theme of drum and bass. They were both 16 years old and were White British and one was male and one was female. I think that this relates directly to the genre of my music magazine as I think that people will be able to relate the two people to the genre of music and the target audience.

The font and styles that I have used are relating to my genre of music as I have made them very bold throughout so that it looks as though it will stand out from other magazines. The way that I chose my font was asking people of my target audience what text they thought would be best for the title and then they chose the one that I used in the final product. I made sure that the text was consistent throughout all of the pages and that it would create a constant flow of all of the pages. I created the main titles through dafont as I think that this website is good for the main headings of some parts and then I used one of the default text options for the main text because they are the easiest to read and I think that people would rather read the text in a simple text rather than having to struggle with fancy text. With the impact of the font I wanted people to be most attracted to the titles and sub-titles and that is why I used a large font for these.

With the written content of my magazine I think that I produced a very good journalistic style write up for my double page spread. I chose the style of language through asking the target audience and looking through other magazines and I think that this meant that I could get the correct language to use in my journalistic write up for the double page spread. This relates to the audience as this is the style of language which they wanted and I think that by relating back to this the audience will mean that I will have achieved the biggest audience possible. I used lots of exclamation marks and I think that these relate back to my target audience as it backs up the point that I have just made. I thought that the magazine of vibe is very relatable to my music magazine as it uses lots of the same conventions inside and on the front cover.

Layout was also an important factor in my music magazine. The front cover layout was modelled around lots of other music magazines and I think that I successfully made it look like a new music magazines but still relating to what the audience wanted. With my contents page I tried to copy the magazine contents page style which looks formal but still has lots of information on the pages, I think that this worked because I had enough information to make the contents page useful while still not flooding the page with information. My double page spread follows the conventions of a typical music magazine as it has a journalistic write up and I think that this is a good idea as people can connect to the information that is being presented.

For the balance and proportion of text to image on my front cover I have around 60% of image and then 40& of text and I think that this is good because people want to see a large image of the front page which displays the main feature and I think that this is conventional because the image is normally around 70% of the page and I think that with having this percentage that I am using it means that I am able to still have a good sized image while still having enough text for the audience to read about. For the balance of text to image on my contents page my contents page has 60% text and 40% image and this is because I wanted to have the text having enough detail so that they knew exactly what was going to be in the main sections of the magazine. I think that this is conventional as lots of magazines have small descriptions underneath all of the contents page headings and this is so that it gives them a brief description of what they may want to see in each section. For my double page spread I think that I have around 70% text and 30% image and this is good because in a journalistic style writ up it only needs a few images which can relate back to the text and it is more important that the writing is in a good style. I think that this is conventional because lots of journalistic double page spreads have lots of text and still have images which relate back to what the text is saying.

Overall I think that I have shown a variety of ways in which I have followed and also challenged some conventions of typical music magazines, but I think overall I have tried to follow the conventions of music magazines just so that I can keep with what the audience want. I have done this so that it seems like a realistic magazine that you would find in a stand and would be a good seller. I think if I would have tried to create something new then it may have attracted the wrong sort of attention with people looking as it like it’s not a real magazine.