EVALUATION QUESTION 1: (part 2)

I have realized that my product, a music magazine must have similar aspects to other music magazines out in the market to be able to target the audience. I intended to this by researching into music magazines in the genre of R&B/Hip-hop. When producing my media product I managed to use, develop and challenge several forms of conventions used in many typical music magazines especially the one related to my genre which is R&B/Hip-hop to enable me to produce a professional and appealing music magazine that informs and entertains the audience.

I looked at various types of Hip-hop/R&B music magazines that are available and successful in the market such as VIBE magazine, The Source, XXL and Billboard magazine. By researching into these products, I compares and contrasted the similarities between them all such as the prices, pages, images, use of colours, layout, structure, celebrities used, adverts, puffs, freebee’s etc to help m understand the forms and conventions for my magazine.

My Magazine:

Another way I followed conventions of a real R&B/Hip-Hip magazine was the layout of the magazine. I researched into the various similar magazines out on the market to understand the similarities and differences as well as understand why it was necessary to do this. The layout of the magazine was an important concept as the structure should be attractive and engaging but

it must also conform to the conventions of the specific genre as it would be one of the benefits to why those specific magazines are successful. Therefore the mode of address image must be centered into the middle – rule of thirds to conform to magazine structure.

There should be enough space left for the text to be inserted and seen easily. I ensure that the images I took for the front cover, the mode of address must give direct gaze making the audience feel as they are aspired by the model and they’re directing all the information at them showing equality. My front cover image is a mid shot in portrait which allows me to easily edit on Photoshop and make it look high quality by removing background disturbance and strengthening the image. A portrait mid shot shows professionalism in the image due to a high quality camera being used and image taken in a photo shoot studio, this allows me to choose a background of my choice and edit around. By allowing space around my model for the cover image, this allows me to later add text as there is space on either side and even above to include masthead, quotes, cover lines or story lines. This shows that I have used the conventions of layout for my cover images of my magazine.

From researching into various products on the market that develops or challenges forms and conventions for products, this helps me understand additionally on how music magazine of my chosen genre appeal to their demographics. This depends on gender, sex, age, location etc. Most magazines that are aimed at older demographics usually have higher prices and have tendency to use softer or darker shades of colour which is eye catching to the audiences eyes. Whereas magazines that are aimed to younger target audience uses brighter and vibrant colours to keep audience engaged and appeals to them. I looked at the similarities and differences in the magazines I researched that are available in the market. From this researched I started to plan the aesthetics, the way it looks, structure and layout etc that I hope to produce. I did this by drawing out a flat plan of how my magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread would look like, this gives me a rough idea of how the conventions in music magazines worked and were presented. I later on created a mock up for each of the pages to see how it would look in colour, images and fonts for me to understand how I would develop the magazine. The music genre presented on the music magazine has the most important affect on the demographic because they attract their audience this way.