Evaluation Draft Question 1

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

During the research and planning stage of this project I took various style models (i-D, Wonderland and Dazed & Confused in particular) and looked at their conventions, page layouts and graphology. To achieve a similar final product to the style models I looked at I mainly focused of the genre of my magazine (indie/alternative) and the type of audience I would aim it at (male and females 16-24). i-D magazine in particular, was a huge inspiration for the style and graphology of my front cover, researching and analysing their bold and unusual covers inspired me, the lack of cover lines and detail on the covers let the strong images they use speak for themselves, this was something I kept in mind when taking my images for my magazine and researching photographers and their style that I wanted to incorporate was important at this stage, as was getting the ‘right’ image for my front cover in order to achieve the same conventions as i-D magazine. The decision to use i-D magazine’s issue tag line e.g. ‘The back to the future issue’ and ‘The pick me up issue’ was a decision made when producing my final front cover, I felt the page was lacking a certain suitably vague tag line which would really brand my magazine and what it would include. I feel using the tag line ‘The influential issue’ fitted my magazine and the band cover stars (Influxx) perfectly and helped me to emulate i-D’s style successfully. Looking at ELLE magazine and the difference between their subscriber and general release covers also helped me to do more research into minimalist and simplistic magazine conventions that I felt fit my magazine best. Researching stylish magazine covers such as Esquire, Dazed & Confused, Wonderland, V and Numero that challenged to conventions of a normal magazine cover also gave me lots of inspiration on how I would incorporate the popular minimalistic style they so eloquently use. Using an example of a minimalistic DPS in Wonderland magazine helped me in presenting the double page spread in my magazine and the particular graphology/layout that I intended to use which would precisely emulate my genre and style of the band (Influxx) best.

Researching photographers had a huge impact on the way my final magazine looked. Terry Richardson’s work in particular helped me create something similar to a real media product. Looking at the cover he shot of Rihanna for the Rolling Stone magazine and how he had incorporated the ‘golden spiral’ rule to capture an eye catching and flawless image of the cover star and was something I kept in mind when taking and choosing the images to but put in my magazine as it was important to me to keep an aesthetically pleasing looking throughout in order to be cohesive and create a ‘real’ media product for my intended audience, genre (indie/alternative) and band (Influxx). Looking at Richardson’s and Vauthier’s style of photography (their camerawork, framing and lighting) was a huge influence on the success of my pictures and lead me to really think about the framing and lighting I would use before even starting to shoot my images. This also led onto planning the costume and props that I would use within my shoot, producing a blog post on the fashion and costume that I wanted to dress my cover stars in helped me to plan the success of the shoot and reflect the genre and style of my magazine/band really well.

Although I challenged the normal conventions of a busy cover page, my masthead is conventional of real magazines; it is the largest piece of text on the page, the first thing a customer would see if it would be placed of a shop shelf, it is easy to read and most importantly it is bold and clear. My choice of title ‘DWNLD’ (read as ‘download’) also reflects my magazine. Inspiration for the title of my magazine was taken from the band ’Sbtrkt’ (subtract) and I feel it really represents the music industry today as most must is streamed online and downloaded from software such as iTunes, SoundCloud and Spotify. Using a slanted ‘electronica’ font for my masthead (Innovation font) also helped to reflect the genre of my magazine and the bands/artists that it will feature. Black and white became the official colour scheme I used throughout, this was matched alongside the costume I dressed the band featured in my magazine and the simplistic/minimalistic conventions taken from style models. The stark contrast of the black on the white against the bold images used within my magazine also helped to make the colour scheme work really well and helped me to create a cohesive magazine style across my front cover, contents and double page spread.

Deciding to challenge the convention of having different artists featuring on my contents page (the same as my front cover and double page spread) was made after taking some shots of a different artist (Jessie Rose) to feature on the contents page. After taking these shots and placing the image on the contents page I came to the realisation that it did not conform to the particular ‘minimalistic’ and ‘simplistic’ layout that I was aiming for. The image of the new artist stood out on the page too much and started to alter the overall simple layout of the page, after discussion and feedback from my peers I decided not to add an image of another artist on the contents page and in its place I put a ‘Records Of the Month’ column and an ‘Albums Of the Month’ column. This decision to challenge the normal convention and forms of a real media product is something I am happy with, I think having the main, bold image of ‘Influxx’ at the top of the page works really well in creating a successful media product, with a modern day edge that challenges some forms and conventions of outstanding media products; giving the magazine its own USP.