Final drafts for front cover, contents page and double page spread

Question 1

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

During the process of creating my product, it was important to make sure that I maintained a good sense of continuity. In order to create my house-style I researched into similar products such as Kerrang! and Rocksound to get ideas for colour schemes and layout to make my product look as professional as possible by making it conventional. I achieved this by using the same text fonts for certain parts of the magazine, for example using a bolder text for page titles and a smaller font for paragraphs. I also used the same colours and layout styles keeping the main images connected and articles linked. Following these features through the three parts of my product helped to keep a consistent look making the pages instantly identifiable as being related to each other. Black, purple and white are the main colours used as they stand out well. Black and purple are also very conventional of this genre as they are dark and reflect the ambiance of the music type. I also based it off the costume of my main model as I wanted the house-style to fit well with the main images and mise-en-scene.   


Whilst creating my products I made sure to include the generic conventions of magazines of this genre such as plugs to make information stand out, having an effective main image and using capital letters to place emphasis on titles, a convention I found used a lot in my research. I also looked at elements such as placement of page numbers as my research showed that page numbers were shown in sub-headings on the contents page and the double page spread would be later on in the magazine rather than at the beginning. I researched appropriate font types and aesthetics which would be appealing to my demographic such as my title font which would not be considered an appropriate convention of a pop or R&B magazine.      


My product dosent stand out in any areas as being unconventional or challenging/pushing boundaries of common conventions. In order to appeal to a wider audience of readers it sticks to popular conventions used by other successful magazines and generalizes a wider genre in order to sell to a mass market.

Ways in which my product uses conventions:

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

My audiences' video feedback:

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

 Looking back through the process of making my first magazine cover, the first thing I noticed was the amount of planning that I put into the drafting and editing of the magazine. I took only around 5 shots for my college magazine cover, compared to 18 for my music magazine, not including secondary images. I used many more conventions on my music magazine and did more research into similar products to make it attractive to the target audience. My use of layout and colour is not as good on my college cover and due to this, my music magazine looks a lot more professional and attractive. "HYSTERIA" is laid out as a conventional music magazine, where as "Wyke College Weekly" lacks many conventions and looks as though it has not had much work into it as it looks empty and the text is too large and the feature at the bottom does not use colour to stand out. The text is also not placed well as the feature at the right side needs to be against the right side of the page. The text is also not that easy to read as it blends in with the main image. Researching into the conventions of magazine covers and looking at similar products really helped me in making my final product as I got a better idea of layout and using different elements to use the page space to it's full potential. I also found that making more drafts helped me to develop ideas and change elements in order to achieve the desired effect, making it aesthetically pleasing and appealing to the target audience whilst fitting in with the genre.    

Preliminary task college magazine                                 Final product music magazine

Here I show which conventions I used in my college magazine cover and my music magazine cover. As you can see many conventions were missing from my college magazine, but after researching conventions in similar products I have made sure that these conventions were included in my music magazine cover.

During the process of making this product, I learnt many new skills with PhotoShop, including how to edit photos taking away the background from images, removing unwanted parts of an image and editing colour levels to make my images look as good as they can. I learnt more about the conventions of a magazine covers, and how to use these to adapt my cover to a certain genre as well as how to use colour well to make images and text stand out, and have an effective house style which draws in the intended audience. I also learnt the following areas:

Terminology such as - masthead, skyline, plug, base line, featured articles, secondary images, main image, tag lines date line and banner.

Photography skills such as - shot types, shot lengths, depth of field, composition, framing, rule of thirds and lighting.

Photoshop skills such as - eraser tool, brush tool, magnetic lasso, layer formation, blurred lines, soft edges and colour levels.

Composition skills such as - layout, colours, image placement, text font, image/text size, writing style and use of conventional elements.

Research skills such as -  LIIAR analysis, mood boards, similar products, conventions and research into target audience and their ideology.

Making my Double Page Spread

Double Page Spread - Third Draft

In this final draft I have added text to my page in two equal columns. I added a drop capital to the beginning of my article as conventional of a double page spread, and changed the colour to make it stand out. I used Microsoft Publisher to write my text so that I could re-position it so that it takes up the entire column. The whole article is not on here as these articles usually take up 3-6 pages, and so I have only included some of the article on this double page spread. I have used a conventional writing style and have been very causal and laid back in the way that I present the interview. I have used an appropriate range of colours so that the text stands out and the questions are in a different colour with larger font to make them stand out and easy for the reader to find.  

Double Page Spread - Second Draft

In this second draft, I have filled in some blank spaces on the left of the page by adding a quote in the main title text. I think this is good as it grabs the audiences' attention and is a common convention of rock magazines. I changed the title text to this also, and added some boxes to make the title stand out from the quote using colours from my main image. This has also changed as I conducted another photo shoot and took some better photos choosing a more appropriate pose for my model and giving her the same outfit as before to keep the mise-en-scene consistent across all three of my products. I changed the background colour as I felt that leaving it white would have been too boring and too bright considering the genre of the magazine. In my next draft I will re-draft my text using Microsoft Publisher.

Double Page Spread - First Draft

This is my first draft for my double page spread. I have chosen to have my image taking up most of one page as this is a convention I found was used commonly by this genre. When doing my research I also found that it is conventional to have the title going over two pages, and so I included this in my draft. I think that my image is good as the angle connotes power and the mise-en-scene is relevant to the genre, however I may re-take some images as my model is wearing different clothes here compared to my cover and contents page. I have a good colour scheme for my columns as the text all stands out well but the colour changes for questions and answers, making them stand out and easier to find. In my next draft I need to move the columns so that they are together in two main columns without and stray paragraphs at the bottom, and also change the spacing so that the text is central and takes up the whole column width as is conventional with a double page spread. I will also change the text so that the title is in the same font as the title of the cover and contents pages, keeping a consistent house-style.

Double Page Spread - Digital Drafts

Double Page Spread Drafts

Making my Contents Page

Contents Page Third Draft

In this third draft I have edited the main image to make the colours brighter so that the image stands out more, making the page look less dull and becoming more attractive to audience. I also edited the photo of the t-shit as before it was blending in to the surrounding colour looking dull, but now stands out and fits with the other colours rather than blending in. I decided to change my title text to fit with the masthead from my front cover, keeping a consistent house style. To keep this font the same colour as on the front cover, I had to change the colour of the banner from black to purple, and the space above that from purple to black. I also think that this is good as it stands out more from the page as the rest of it is predominantly black and white. This makes the title stand out at the top of the page. I still need to add some secondary images under the article names to fill in some blank spaces, but after that the products will be ready for review.

Contents Page Second Draft

This is my second draft for my contents page and I have made some changed since the first draft. I changed the background colour for the advert segment, changing up the colour scheme and making it less bring, and more appealing to the audience. I made it the same colour blue as the main image, as I didn't want to over use the colour purple. I also changed the images at the bottom making the t-shirt image an original image taken by me. I also added a few subtle changes such as rotating the top banner so that it takes up less room at the top of the page. I also added boxes behind the page numbers just to make them stand out a bit more from the background colour, and make it seem as though the page has less blank spaces. For my next draft I will add some secondary images to the columns which means that I will have to re arrange the page a little but some of the blank spaces will be filled.

Contents Page First Draft

This is my first digital draft for my contents page. I think that I have made a good start as I have got a good layout from researching contents pages from similar products, and I have got an effective colour scheme which makes boxes, boarders and text stand out well making them easy to read. I will try to edit some of the colours further in my next edit as I think that I have overused the white colour which can look boring and unappealing to the audience. I think that I have used images well with an effective main image and a good use of secondary images, however the images used in the bottom right corner are not my own original images, and so I will have to change this in my next draft. I may also edit the layout slightly as I think that the banner at the top of the page is slanted a bit too far taking up too much of the top part of the page.

Second Digital Draft of Contents Page

First Digital Draft of Contents Page

Collecting Images for Contents Page

I liked this image and it was my second choice for my contents page main image, however the model's pose is not quite right as the idea for the pose was good and suited the genre, however the model looks a bit uncomfortable in that pose which would have been unappealing to the audience.

I experimented with an image viewing the model from the front, however I soon noticed that she looked a bit flat and you couldn't really see her body shape. She also appears smaller due to the camera angle, which would give the wrong impression and make her look weak and not powerful as I was aiming to get.

On this image I zoomed in a bit so that the audience is closer to the subject and it makes the image seem more inviting for the page and the article. However, I did not feel that this image matched the iconography of the magazine genre, as she looked a bit like a typical model in a fashion magazine, and it is not a pose associated with music artists or band members.

This was the image that I decided in in-cooperate into my contents page as I feel that the pose of the model fits the genre and the content of the accompanying article. The image represents a certain ideology which is associated with this genre of music, and is appealing to the target audience. I edited and used this image as the main image on my final draft of my contents page.

Contents Drafts

Contents Page Analysis

Editing My Masthead (using other editing software)

This was the original masthead for my front cover, but I felt that it did not stand out as much as it could do, and so I tried out many different techniques to get it to stand out, and in the end I produced this. I used GIMP 2.0 to create a boarder around my masthead so that it stands out more from the background. It is only a subtle change, but I feel that it makes it stand out from the page more and be more attractive to the audience. I decided to make it with a concrete effect, which goes with the colour scheme and the rock genre of the magazine. This was what it looked like when I had finished. It has a gap where the main image goes, but I edited that later on. This makes the masthead look more professional, and the overall front cover more attractive to the target audience.

Making my front cover

I started by resizing the image so that it fit the page and left enough (but not too much) room at the top for a masthead. I also did not want too much space at the sides of the page, and resizing the image helped to get rid of this.

Next I added the masthead and erased some of it so that it did not overlay the main image. I resized the masthead so that it took up the whole width of the page but still left room for a header.

Next I added a header with some text to draw in the audience. For the text colour I used the select tool to make it the same colour as the background of the main image and the same shade of purple as seen on the model on the main image.

I then added a footer using the same techniques as used for the header and added a background shape for my main headline. I used the rotate tool as this is a technique widely used in the production of rock magazine covers.

I added more text using contrasting colours which stand out well and draw the audience’s attention. I decided to type in upper case as this is a general convention used in the genre.

Next I added a plug and re-coloured the outline of it so that it matched the colours of the text. The text in the puff was re coloured so that it is the same as the background which goes with the house style.

I added a quote above the main article to draw in the audience and I added a secondary article to let the audience know what is in the magazine. I kept all fonts and colours the same for the text in order to keep a consistent house style.

I added an image from a secondary article with a purple boarder, the same as the text. I added a pull quote and rotated it as I did with the main article.

Next I added some secondary images to the bottom of the page with white boarders to make them stand out from the main image. I also added some text to accompany the images. Some of the text overlays one of the images which is a convention for this genre of magazine. I also added a barcode and left some space for a date and issue number.

Front Cover - Fourth Draft

In this draft I have changed quite a lot of things on the page. I decided that the plug would be more effective if it was up in the top corner rather than down with the footer. This also helped to fill in some of the space in the top part of the page. I moved my secondary images so that they were all together at the bottom of the page which also meant that I could add some text to accompany the images. I have added a featured article just above the secondary images which draws the audience in with indications of the magazines contents. I also added a featured article to the right side of the page, and in my next draft I hope to add another. I changed the images so that they are all original images that I have taken. I also added a quote to the main headline to make it more appealing. In my final draft I will add another feature article to fill in some space. i will also add more text to the footer and include a date and issue number.

Choosing some original images

I needed some original images to replace the secondary images currently used in my last draft. I chose to take some images of my friends as they look like band members as they are dressed in clothes identified with the music genre, and have hair styles the same as seen in musicians in this genre. I decided to take the images on a sofa instead of on a white background because the image was to accompany an article of an interview, and this background looks like a laid back room found back stage from rock music concerts. The quality of these images are not great as the camera used was not very good, however the images only take up a small part of my front cover, and you cannot really see the quality as it does not stand out as bad images. I decided to use the first image on my cover because you can see the models more clearly and it looks as though they are talking which goes with the idea that the image was taken during an interview. Also the framing of the shot is better as the models take up more of the frame and the audience can see them more clearly.