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

To the left you can see a table with aspects of all my final products, equally on the right you see a table with aspects from real magazines on sale today. With these two tables I can compare and contrast the conventions within both.

Starting with element 1, we see on both tables, a sticker type graphic. This was used on my products to inform the reader about a review within the magazine, stating its page number and having a brightly coloured title. Similarly on the second table we see a sticker talking about a famous music star: Jay Kay. This draws in the reader and makes them want to know what he has to say. Differently however, we see that the real magazine gives no page reference, I thought this was a mistake as a page reference is such an easy thing to incorporate but also makes the readers life a lot easier. The real magazine does use bright colours still though.

Element 2 shows us a subscription box. What this essentially is, is a way to try and get the readers to subscribe to the magazine. Within my magazine I has bright bold letters saying 'Subscribe' and then a visual image of the front cover, shrunk. The image gives variety to the product. Furthermore I added a website reference and a signature to add some graphical pleasure, making it a bit more interesting to look at. Looking now at the real magazines subscription box we see a similar sized box with a lot of images of the magazine. However, they haven't made the writing very big or bright, so people may over look it when reading. I did like their price guide which I missed out and merely wrote about what amount of money you can knock off. This in hindsight I could have changed. 

Element 3, is a stand first. This is something that begins a article, there not necessarily the title of the article, but do relate to the article. In my product we see a simple caption saying 'true indie is back' with some writing underneath introducing the reader into the article. The real magazine has used a lot more colour and has made it a lot bolder. This is something I could have took on bored in the process of making my magazine.

Element 4 shows the contents header or title along with the date and issue number etc. In mine we see 'contents' in big bold white on black writing, also I incorporated the magazine title in the header to add variety. Finally on the other end of the header, I had included the date, issue number and some references to find the magazine online. I did this in white writing which was big, but not so much that it took you away form the title. In comparison, we look at the real magazines header. You can see the have used yellow on black so it stands out, with the date and issue number smaller underneath. The whole header is quite small in comparison to mine, I presume this was to make extra space for the contents page, this could have been quite an effective idea to pick up on. 

Element 5 shows the strap at the top of of each magazine. Straps are a element used frequently by the magazine industry, they are small, so not to take up that much space, but offer a lot of information about what is in the magazine. My strap explains about an exclusive within the magazine, I made it bright yellow with the names of the band black on white cut outs, small words such as 'And' were made small to add space. Looking over at the second table we see that the real magazine is quite simple with a white on red approach, this means they didn't take up much space, but it seems a little small and un-appealing to the eye. One thing both magazines missed out on was page references to skip straight to that page, but this could have taken up to much space.

Element 6 is a simple pull quote from the double page spread articles. In mine, I have used a informal, friendly font and have made the main word in the quote green to stand out. In the real magazine, it is a simple black on blue to make it stand out and get straight to the point. Pull quotes are used a lot in magazines, as they allow the read to gain information about the article without having to read the entire thing.

Element 7 shows a tag ling on the font cover of the magazines, within mine we see the title of the story with a little synopsis to tell the reader a little about it, I felt it would be important to make this bold with bright colours  and a page reference. I used blacks, whites, reds and yellows to do this, following my 'house style'. Looking again at the second table we see a very simplistic tag line with no use of colours or references. I felt this would make the magazine harder to navigate, although it does free up some space on the cover making it less crowded. 

The title on any magazine is one of the most important elements, as it is generally one of the biggest things on the cover. Looking at element 8 on the first table we see a condensed and bright/bold title that is easy to read and is eye catchy. I used bright colours and a bold font as I felt it would be the easiest thing to read. Looking at the second table we see a simple title (black and white), but with this broken effect on it, this was very effective on me, but wouldn't have suited my magazines style and audience. 

Finally, element 9, this is a simple drop cap, which informs the reader the articles has started and generally looks better than without one. In mine we see a bright green outline for the starting letter which is black making it easy to locate and linking in with the rest of the article. The other table however shows a simple, boring, drop cap with no colour.