Evaluation draft question 1

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

My particular sub-genre is hip-hop/modern hip-hop. Above is an example of a pre-existing music magazine which my magazine would be associated with and could be next to when being sold.

During the research stage of my magazine I looked at a wide range of music magazines that linked with my hip hop genre as well as magazines from previous students that achieved full marks. Also I decided to look at magazine from previous student that got a lower grade so that I could compare the two. From this research I could distinguish the difference from what I would need to consider achieving and high grade. Looking at magazines such as Vibe and Complex also help me see the usual convention you would find and those students that followed the usual conventions in the past were those that received the higher marks. The reason for this is that the companies who publish these magazines know exactly what the target audience want and what will influence them to buy their magazine. An important aspect is the cover artist and how they are represented.

Also I looked at how the golden spiral is used to draw your eye to the most attractive and aesthetically pleasing part of a photo. However this idea doesn't always work with magazine covers as their aim is to appeal to their target audience and sell as many magazines as possible, therefor they may not always use the usual conventions of a magazine if they think for example a mid-shot is not appropriate if they want to focus the main front cover image on the artist. For this they may use a close up.

Another convention that is sometimes heavily relied on is the rule of three, this involves breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. I have shown an example of this below. For my magazine this will also be the landscape, mise en scene, colour scheme and different fonts used. Conventions; most monthly magazines have 60-70 pages, the mast head usually cover the width of the page in the top third. Most magazine conventions depend on the target market of the magazine which could have an influence on The title of the magazine, graphology/page layouts, costumes, props, iconography used to reflect genre, camerawork, framing of images, article, header, font, style genre of the magazine cover, contents and dps, how my artist is represented and also colour scheme. These are the aspects I had to consider across the nine frames when making my magazine.

During the design and draft stage of my magazine I took srtongly into account these conventions because they are what attract the specific target audience and make them want to magazine which is key. I took most of my inspiration from complex magazine who have a lot of interesting design that maybe I wouldn't be able to replicate but of what I can take inspiration from to inmprove the quality of my magazine. These magazines were manley aimed at a male audience around 20-30 around the same as mine. The main convention that did'nt change thought the whole of similar magazine is a big, bold mast head, therefore I felt like this was the main convention I should stick too.

I think that my magzine title stands out but also would fit in with other similar magazines. It is simple and I think the word diamond creates a 'special' kind of feel. I chose to layer the mast head behind the artist to focus on the image. This is also a convention of most hip hop magazine, ' to focus on the artist'. However being a first addition I made sure the mast head was still easily readable so that people would know the name of the magazine. I chose to use red as my mast head colour to add to the colour scheme and differ it from the the usual black mast head.

The photographs were a keys part to my magazine and I found it difficult to get both a proffetional looking photo that portrayed my artist the way I wanted. When choosing my model I had a lot of criteria I had chosen upon, for example I wanted an male coloured as I felt this would appeal to my target market. Then I looked at artist similar to the artist I wanted to portray such as tyler and the creater and took inspiration from photography of them and how they act. I sore from this that the clothing style was key as well as for them to be photogenic. My model had short hair which was fine however I decided that he should wear a cap as this would appeal to my target audience and also most similar magazine also featured their model wear a hat on the front cover. I had to make sure that the hat did not contrast with the colour scheme. I kept the colour scheme of red, white and black in mind throughout all of my photo's as I felt getting this wrong could ruin my magazines look. The possible challenges I faced whilst trying to follow the conventions of a hip hop magazine were taking my photo's. For example to having the use of a professional studio meant that finding a suitable place to take the pictures was difficult. I had to find somewhere that had the cover lighting so the final picture wouldn't need much editing in terms of contrast and also somewhere that had a plain white background making the photo easy to cut out using Photoshop. I think this was important because most hip hop magazine have a plain white background on the front cover. However there are some hip hop magazine that have a natural background such as Zink magazine featuring Kid Cudi below. Looking at this I decided to take some photos keeping a natural background to see how they looked. However I felt that non of the photos fitted the magazine and I decided to keep a plain white background. 

The photographs I took varied from background to position and pose of the model so I had option to which one I would chose. Firstly I looked through and eliminated all the pictures that were blurry and pix-elated. I then apply the golden spiral rule to my pictures as well as the poses and most importantly facial expressions that worked well and would portray my artist the way I wanted. The picture I liked most were the ones were my model was looking away from the camera. L think these photo's gave my artist, being a new up and coming talent, an interesting person not giving to much away to the audience. Even though this may have gone against some of the conventions of a hip hop magazine I felt like this would be appropriate for a new artist. Also this type of image I found has been used on a lot of hip hop magazines and I feel works well.  


Over all I think that my magazine relies heavily on the use of conventions and developing these conventions around my product. I wouldn't say I have challenge the usually conventions in any way as I felt this wouldn't appeal to my target audience and may put them of buying my magazine over another.