Question 1

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

Magazines in general follow tight codes and conventions such as:

• ·      A large dominant title
• ·      Extra promotional features such as puffs and other images
• ·      A dominant background image
• ·      A bar code on the right hand side along with an issue number and a date

Normally a music magazine goes along with the same codes and conventions as other magazines but I decided to experiment with some ideas to make my magazine seem different and more appealing to my audience.

To start with, I decided against using a large title going across the cover. Instead, I used the top let hand corner to put my simple title of OI!. I did this because it not only parody’s OK! magazine (which, in a way, is the binary opposite of my magazine) but to make it eye catching on the magazine rack. Also the name OI! Can be addressed as the magazine yelling at a passerby to pick it up and look at it.

I have also decided against using puffs, I wanted the magazine to be like the punk music and be completely stripped down and be only built up on the would basics and what’s important to the magazine, so in this case it’s the 3 main articles that I feel are important and be interesting to the reader. I also chose to put them on the left third to make it appealing to the audience and it allows them to see what’s in the magazine at just a glance.

Another feature I added was the banner going across the top of the cover. Most magazines have some form of banner going across the masthead with a slogan, I choose to follow this convention because it gives the magazine something to be remembered by and show what the magazine is there to represent and do something for its audience.

I chose a different approach with the main image as I didn’t want it to take up the whole of the cover. I felt that it was appropriate to make the image black and white because it shows the rawness of the music genre and it also goes well with the colour scheme of the cover. Furthermore it gives the cover an old school Punk/DIY feel, which I think would be appealing to members of my chosen audience.

To conclude, even though I have chosen to go against the normal codes and conventions, I feel that my product works because it’s so different in terms of aesthetic looks. Also by looking different it stands out from other products and goes hand in hand with the genre of punk which I was trying to recreate to attract my audience.