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

In conclusion, my media product follows the conventions of a typical magazine format in general. After doing some research and analyzing recent music magazines on the market, I looked at, in particular, what appealed to me as a teenager (young person). I researched some sales figures on music magazines such as 'NME' so that I could get a better idea of where they were distributed and what age range purchased them in general etc. From my research, I found that, in 2013, over quadruple the amount of paper magazines were sold in the UK than in digital formats, for example reading via a laptop, mobile or tablet. However, when doing specific research on NME, a music magazine with a similar target audience to my own, I found that NME had an 85% growth in people accessing it's mobile website to read specific articles in 2014. Of the audience that were reading online, only 60% of those also bought a paper copy of an NME magazine. This therefore means that my audience are more likely to want to read my magazine online, especially due to the increased growth in digitization. To encourage my target audience to actually purchase an online version of my magazine, I would include conventions that attract my target audience, for example, bright colours and pictures of new and upcoming artists whose music videos can be watched through the online version. I would also include a copyright logo so that my work cannot be copied. I would conform to existing music magazines so that it would be likely that my audience would be attracted to the magazine as it looks professional, therefore increasing appeal and, ultimately, increasing profit. When it came to font usage and colour schemes, I chose to use the same font and colouring throughout my magazine, creating continuity. This means that my readers will be able to clearly identify my product where it is being distributed, meaning more of my audience are likely to buy the magazine more than once if they recognize it. Continuity was maintained throughout my product in the colour scheme. I used white, yellow and black, purely because they connote the indie rock genre well. Not only this, but they match the colours of the main image and text portrayed on the front of my magazine, from the outline of the text to the colour dress my artist is wearing. There are images of my main artist on all pages, however I decided to use different camera angles and shot types so as to mix up how to artist was portrayed, for example, using close ups to show the makeup she had on, medium close ups to see her look, and then a long shot to show her playing an instrument etc. Each of these images showed her appeal. The front cover itself contains a masthead, feature stories, plug, bar code, price, date, footer and main image, again showing that my music magazine conforms to that of a typical music magazine. On my contents page, I have included features such as feature stories, posters, offers etc. The contents page in itself highlights the features of a typical music magazine, and page numbers have been used next to my feature stories. This, again, shows that I have conformed to an existing music magazine.