Evaluation Question One (1 Draft)

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

In terms of a music magazines to use as references in my research and planning stage of this project I decided to look outside of my chosen genre (Billboard, Q and Mojo) as well as take examples from within (BROMIDE, NYLON, Ce Ci, Sparkling and KPOPLIFE). From these magazines, I chose simple conventions to adopt and apply to my own methods of design; those conventions consisted of graphological features such as page lay outs, font types positioning of the text and ideas for positioning of my models.

Firstly, I focused on magazines within my genre (kpop) which were high selling brands and ones I knew had an attentive audience and a successful reputation: for example, I used the magazines BROMIDE and KPOP LIFE because in my research I discovered that these magazines had a highly-rated readership- therefore it was obvious to infer that if I applied the qualities from these magazines it would help to develop my product into something with the opportunity of success or thereabouts. The magazines that I used also had the same audience of which I wanted to appeal to (15-20 years old of both sexes) and this was vital as it allowed me to focus of simple conventions such as which types of artist to use, what formality of English I should incorporate in my writing/ the tone of the article as well as other conventions.

BROMIDE magazine which is identified as within my genre was a major inspiration for style because of the colour scheme used. In my audience research the use of google forms), it was evaluated that the preferred colour scheme was roughly approximated to be blue and white. In the issue of the BROMIDE magazine I used for my textual analysis (2015, April) the colour scheme offered coordination of a blue white and yellow theme and so I decided to base my magazines colour scheme loosely off the blue and white theme.  The shade of blue I used I used for my final product and draft I used the exact colour by applying the colour select tool on Photoshop during my design process. In further research I chose BROMIDE’s double page spread as my inspiration for a text format as it was simplistic and easy to read- It seemed like that idea would fit with my genre and appeal to my audience as I did not wish it to be too overwhelming and loud- if it did have these features it would unfortunately not appeal to the desired audience of my magazine and would also come across as too commercialised.

The use of my title was also important as it had to be snappy. All the other magazines I had researched held some relevance to the genre and they were either direct and to the point of short and snappy- in the best cases they were both. This is the convention I applied to my title when thinking of the word ‘JUNTA’. When it comes to successful and memorable titles they have to be short- for example, NYLON and BROMIDE and CE CI are all short and snappy. In the case of junta is short and sweet and hold a hidden relevance of a political group forcing power. Instead of a political group I wanted to convey that this was a genre that would hopefully take an unfamiliar world by storm. 

Secondly, I researched into the use of bold and capitalised titles on front pages of magazines and I found that the majority of magazines do, in fact, adopt this feature and apply it to their covers. For example, BROMIDE and NYLON tackle the kpop genre in a more main stream and direct style- focussing on the latest releases and the biggest artists and this was the approach and sort of content I wished to base my magazine on. Not to mention the fact that there are British magazines outside of my chosen genre such as; MOJO, VIBE and KERRANG also adopt the convention of capital letters in their titles. I decided to use a clear masthead which would typically be the biggest text on my cover page as well as aim for it to complement my uniform formation of my cover page by implicating an organised structure. Therefore, the idea for my masthead to be in capitals and bold letters appealed to this idea. Another idea to have it positioned at the top of the page in the left- not only combined my research into the conventions of text layout appealing to the natural eye line and readers gaze- it allowed me to apply the idea used by Q to have their title segregated using a box and made more prominent.

The style I wanted to incorporate through the cover of my magazine was subtle one. I used placement photos of an artist called GDragon and attempted to coordinate that style used in the photo shoot for the magazine KPOPLIFE. I also applied and attempted to develop a well-known pose from the artist into my photos but in the end I did not use the as it challenged the inviting and respectable look I wished to give my kpop magazine. The struggle to get the correct image for my genre was down to supplicated style and a colour scheme which applied the natural photogenic pose. I kept in mind whilst taking my photos that the magazine KPOPLIFE focuses more on the genre through a commercialised state and they are more about celebrity gossip as well as the music element and this was not an element I wanted to communicate in my magazine. Consequently, I decided to have my poses as animate and inviting including simple things like smiling and laughing- this therefor challenged the usual conventions of a commercialising kpop music magazine.

Researching the style for my models was difficult for me as there are not many kpop magazines with a minimalistic colour scheme (which I wished to adopt). The reason I wished to adopt a minimalist style was due to the fact that professional makeup, coordinated high end fashion products were simply not something I could apply due to the lack of availability. Usually kpop magazines are very loud and eye catching and I did not have the elements to adopt this convention. This is where I discovered and used the magazine Ce Ci- focusing only on the cover images- I took into account that they use minimalistic covers and their photoshoots only usually have one or two artists. When I began to look at Ce Ci’s actual magazine style I saw that the text used and the formatting of the text was uniform and used guide lines- and this was the style I saw and wanted to develop as I aimed to achieve a concept where my text was all on one side but flowed together like it did on Ce Ci’s cover. When it came to my cover page I like to think adopting the text convention that Ce Ci used I was also challenging the convention of a busy text layout of my cover page. The concept of it being a well thought out layout of text was important as it had to be aesthetically appealing for my readership as it was going to be a difficult magazine to sell as it is due to its genre.

When coming up with shots for my cover page researching the photographer Mike Massaro came into play as I had discovered the idea and concept of including the manipulation of lighting and shadows and how to apply this convention when taking photos to be featured. Within my photo shoot I attempted these concepts and convention but unfortunately did not come to using them for my final piece.