EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media
Mastheads should go
The image should be in
across the top of the page.
the centre of the page and
The masthead has to fit the
catch the readers eye. The
style of the magazine but
artist should make direct
could go over or under the
eye contact with the
image.
reader. The image should
be in the style of the
magazine with appropriate Barcode would usually
mise en scene. would go in one of the
bottom corner of a
magazine, yet this
magazine cover doesnt
have a barcode. Price,
issue and moth should
go around or near the
products? (i.e. of music magazines) barcode.

The title of the magazine

The masthead on the cover of my magazine soul follows and uses conventions
of other mainstream music magazines such as vibe, clash and fader, as my
masthead is simple and short word similar to those magazines. The title of my
magazine is SOUL which refers to music that has a sense of soul and meaning. I
chose the word soul for my title as I find the word easy to say and physically
pleasing to look at on the cover. The masthead of my magazine was in font
impact with a font size of 130 pt. Impact is a simple and bold font that helps
my magazine to stand out and grabs the readers eyes. On my cover my
masthead is the biggest piece of text as this is common for most mainstream
magazine covers. I chose to follow the common features of a magazine so that
my magazine develops forms and conventions of a real music magazine and
magazine in general. My title uses conventions as large typefaces are a common
convention that many magazines use to attract readers like FADER, NME and
Loud and Quite. The simple style of font fit the overall style of my magazine as I
choose a minimalistic design. To fit typical conventions, I had my masthead at
the top of the page, which cover half of the width of the cover. In most main
stream magazine covers the masthead goes fully across the part unlike mine. On
my final cover my title was in write with a red box around the letter S. The red
added a pop of colour to the cover to make it stand out in a store and to a reader
while the basic white kept the cover looking clean and simple. The box and the
letter s in the box would become unique to my magazine and would attract my
audience.
Graphology/page layouts
The overall graphology and layout of my magazine is very minimalistic and
simple, therefore conforms to Rodger Blacks theory that a cover should be a
poster a single image of a human will sell more copies than multiple images or
all type. I only used three fonts across my magazine cover, content page and
double page spread; these being impact, imperial BT and Arial as these fonts
best fitted the style of my magazine and looked simple and clean in my
magazine which was the look I wanted to go for. Chris frosts advice for creating a
magazine was dont use too many typefaces. I didnt want to have too many
different fonts as I thought to mush variation in text font would make the
magazine look complicated and that wasnt the style I wanted to go for. The
masthead is the biggest piece of text on my cover as it is most important part of
the magazine and has to stand out in shops to the reader, the audience
distinguish between different magazines using the masthead so its important it
stand out. I used the font impact in font size 130 pt to help the masthead
attract an audience; the text face is simple and clean which fits with the style of
my magazine. The next biggest text on my cover is my artists name Reggie
Lewis also in the font impact and size 72pt across the bottom of the page as
this is the selling point of the magazine. this fits conventions as many magazines
use their artist name to attract an audience. Rodger Black theory is that The
first colour is white. The second colour is black. The third colour is red. White for
background, black for text, red for accent and excitement. These three colours
are the best. I tried to stick to this colour pallet as I thought it would work best
for the style of my magazine. Most of the text on my cover is in white as the
background is a dark grey yet some small parts of the text are in black and red
to add excitement and catch the readers eye. Many magazine including fader
and clash have previously used this colour palette on their magazine cover. The
barcode on my cover is fairly big as it is the same sizing of Fader magazines
barcode and as I made the size of the page the same as Faders magazine size
(22.7w, 27.5h). I thought this would mean the composition of the page would
look more realistic. I also didnt want my cover to look to bare as thought the
bigger barcode would fill the page out more. Although I have a conventional
cover my content page and double page spread are a little more unconventional
compared to common mainstream music magazine like Kerrang and Mojo yet
compared to new and modern music magazines like fader and ID my magazine
style seems more conventional as this is a new style that magazines are using. I
wanted to create a new product that was different to the typical music magazine
as the brief was a new music magazine. This unconventional style attacks my
target audience as I know they are looking for something they havent seen
before. My content page has a lot of negative space, with only two main images
of artists which seems unconventional but is often seen in more modern
magazine like fader and ID. The negative space fits with the style of my
magazine as it wanted it to be simplistic. My colour palette of red, white and
black carried through on my content page and my double page. The first page of
my triple page spread seems unconventional as half the page is taken up by the
title of my article and the rest is the start of the article. The title of magazine
being in large letters would attract my audience to read the article. The letters
on the first page of my triple page seem artistic and look physically pleasing; I
know my target audience are interested in art so its important that the
magazine has an artist feel and look about it. My double page spread challenges
conventions as it focuses more on the image then a large body of text which is
not normally seen in common magazines. My image takes up two thirds or my
page which follows the rule of thirds which appears to be pleasing to look at. This
style of double page was influenced by a page i have seen in a fader magazine.
However this minimalist style I have chosen for my magazine isnt a style that
everyone would like or chose to buy.

Costumes, props, iconography used to reflect genre

Some elements of my magazine images challenge conventions as I
decided to not use any props with in my images as I didnt want to distract
from my artist and I found it difficult to find a background that fitted with
the style of my magazine. The clean white background of the images links
to the clean and minimalistic feel of my overall magazine. I wanted my
images to still apply to my red, black and white colour palette so that I ran
throughout my magazine. In the white room that I used to take my photos
in, there are free standing lights that I moved and turned on and off to
create different effects and shadows. I asked both my artist to dress in
cloths they had already seen other artists of the same genre of music
wearing to try and recreate that look. They both choose to dress in dark
clothes are these colours are linked to the grime genre of music. Reggie
wore a CP jacket over an Adidas jacket and Nike cap. I took a range of
photos of my artist wearing different jackets and with and without a cap to
see with style best fitted my genre. My final photo on Reggie that I used
for my cover has him wearing a CP jacket without the cap to show his
dread locks as they are commonly seen on grime artists. Leone wore a
Stone Island jacket; these brands are commonly associated with the grime
genre.

Camerawork and framing of images

Throughout my magazine, I tried to use a range of different shot types,
including a close up, medium close up, mid shot and long shot to be
conventional as most main stream magazine have a range of camera
shots. For my images, I was influenced by the photographer Terry
Richardson as he also uses bright exposed photos with a plain white
background to focus on the artist or model that is being photographed.
My magazine cover has an unconventional image as its a mid-shot and
the artist isnt making eye contact with the reader, in common
mainstream magazine the artist would be in a close up shot and making
eye contact with the reader to try and tract them to buy the magazine. My
artist is located in the middle of my cover meaning he is the focus and
selling point of the magazine, which follows conventions of typical
magazine that use their artist as the main selling point. I kept a plain
white background for all my photos as I wanted to keep them looking
simple and clean to fit the style of my magazine. I took all my photos on a
Nikon D32100 using a white room with free standing lights. For images
like the image on my double page spread I adjusted and turned out the
lighting to create a shadow effect which infers the darker side of grime
music.
Title, article, header etc font and style
Although my article does include some convention features such as an
article title, column, drop caps and a main image, on the other hand it
also has some unconventional elements such as no including a pull quote
and a large image. My article has a lot of negative or write space around it
which some readers might find unusually as it challenges conventions yet
this negative space allows the reader to focus on the article without
distractions. The title of my article is soul never out of style as I wanted
to have a strong link between my article and the rest of the magazine as
my magazine title is soul. My triple double page spread is
unconventional as the article starts on the first page of the triple page
spread and the title of the article fills half of the page. The letters of the
title are laid out artistically to attract my target audience as well as make
the article seem interesting; I added red to one of the letters to add a pop
of colour without it becoming too busy. The large and bold title of the
article stands out and attracts the reader to read the article. The article
then carries on to the double page spread yet this is also unconventional
as my image takes up two thirds of the page using the rule of thirds with a
strip of writing along the right-hand side. The page isnt crowned or busy
so the reader can just focus on reading the article and the image; text can
be difficult to read when you are distracted by other elements of the
magazine. The used a stand Arial font for my article as its an easy and
simple font to read again linking to the fact I want my reader to be able to
easily read the article without distractions.
Genre and how the magazine cover, contents and spread suggests it
I want my magazine to contain all different genres of music including,
soul, R&B, grime and pop music. However, the magazine I have produced
focus more on grime music. I chose this genre of music as I feel it fitted
the style of my magazine more and suited the models I wanted to use.
The red, white and black colour pallet I have used throughout my
magazine reflects the genre of music as darker colours are related with
this genre of music. For a pop or R&B music magazine I would have used a
brighter colour pallet to portray the genre. In the images the artists are
wearing cloths typically seen which in the grime genre, Reggie is wearing
a CP jacket and Leone is wearing a stone island jacket, these brands are
closely associated with the grime genre as grime artist are often seen in
these brands including Stromzy and Skepta. Most grime artists are of an
African background and are stereotyped as being the best at what they
do; because of this I chose to use two artists that are also of an African
descent to feature in my magazine. During research and planning I looked
into the type of images I wanted to use in my magazine, the images I liked
the best were photos that use black models, therefore I wanted to
recreate these kinds of images.
How your artist(s) are represented
I chose to represent my artist as a conventional grime artist such as
stormzy and Skepta. I asked my artist to dress and present themselves in
ways that they had seen other grime artist dress in other magazine. I
picked two models that already knew each other so they were comfortable
with one another, and I hoped this showed in the photos as I wanted the
images to have a relaxed feel that my magazine has. My models chose
how they wanted stand and what to do with their hands as I wanted it to
seem natural. The image I used on the cover shows my artist with his
head looking up, he doesnt make eye contact with the reader which is
unconventional for a magazine. This images represents the artist as being
powerful and confident which links to the grime genre of music.

Colour scheme
I decided to use a red, black and white colour palette throughout my
magazine as I wanted to have a simplistic style with the pop of colour that
the red bring to add interest and excitement to my magazine. I feel this
colour palette links to the grime genre as the genre is associated with
darker colours like the black and grey. Rodger Black theory is that The
first colour is white. The second colour is black. The third colour is red.
White for background, black for text, red for accent and excitement. These
three colours are the best. Many magazines I have looked at during my
research and planning used this colour palette which I liked. My colour
palette was influenced by fader who often uses this colour palette. I tried
to keep this colour palette throughout my images as well, due to this my
artist are dressed in dark colours and I chose a plain white background.