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

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

My media product uses form and conventions of real media products, as it follows similar traits of real media products such as a masthead that cover the length of the top on the page. It also uses one main image to keep the attention of the audience making it look professional and clean. I also used a close up picture of a male because from my research I found that most of the oriental magazines consisted of a facial image as the main image and they were all of males therefore I used that convention in order to fit the criteria of an oriental magazine. I also made sure that the artist was looking directly into the camera to make it seem as if he was looking at the audience.

I also used the form of real media product colour schemes, they tend to have no more than 4 colours so I made sure I used no more than 4 main colours to keep the magazine consistent and memorable, despite the use of yellow on the front cover to make certain words stand out to the audience. On my front cover I had also used a few cover lines in order to not over crowd the page and turn the audience’s attention away from the magazine. The extra space had allowed me to include a subline that allowed the audience to have a sneak preview into the article that is included in my media product.

I also used a convention many real media products use which is a puff, mine was a chance to win 2 tickets to see Kaan Isyan perform in Turkey, which attracts many people, as it is free, and I had used a puff because to gain publicity many magazines use puffs. In order for it to also be a magazine I had used a bar code on the bottom right corner, in order for it be scanned in big branched supermarkets, in order for their not to be a barrier in selling the magazine.

Music magazines tend to have no more than 2 images in the contents page to not distract the audience; therefore I used only 1 image. To keep the magazines name clear in the audiences mind I had put ‘’Zarafet” at the top. A convention of oriental magazines is class and elegance therefore I named my magazine Zarafet because of that reason, Zarafet translated from Turkish to English meaning politeness/elegance. Content pages are usually just 1 page long therefore my contents page is also a page long to fit with the forms and conventions of real media products.

My contents page also follows the forms and conventions of a real media product as the contents colour scheme is consistent and follows from the front cover which doesn’t allow there to be confusion to the audience and also keeps it looking professional and not childish.

However I also challenged the conventions of a contents page as usually magazines would have contents at the top of the contents page whereas I put it across the left side of the page in order to put the magazines name at the top. This was because it’s the magazines first issue and I wanted the audience to remember the magazines name.

A convention of double page spreads are the drop caps, which the first letter of the article being bigger and bolder than the rest of the article to tell the audience where the article starts, I done this too as I feel everyone is used to seeing a drop cap in order to know where the article begins. I also wrote the text in columns to keep the double page spread looking clean and easy to read. Another convention I had used was the page numbers at the bottom of the pages, to not confuse the readers and know what they are reading referred from the contents page. Also to keep the professionalism and creditability, I wrote under the article I wrote that I had taken the picture and wrote the article, in order to inform the reader.