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

2. The ‘masthead’ of the ‘Teenage’ magazine is always brightly coloured and outlined, often with a background shadow. I didn’t use an outline or back shadow because I felt that a lot of the text on my front cover already had it. My ‘Masthead’ takes up less of the page because of the cherry illustration, which makes it stand out less than the ‘Masthead’ of the Teenage magazines. The backgrounds of all of these magazines are bright and colourful, the Teenage magazines, however, use sparkles and paint stripes that overlap the figures to make the backgrounds more interesting. I intended for my background to be bright enough to catch attention without it being too overwhelming, hence why I used a light blue turning to white. The text within my front cover looks like a mixture of the ideas used in the two examples. The paint splattering idea used a lot in the first example I have also used in the title ‘Nameless’, which I intended to use to make it look like the name was painted on. Continuing with the ideas used in the text on the page, this magazine uses a similar idea of having text on blocks of colour. This example uses the blocks to make the text look like paper that has been stuck on, but works well to make the text stand out. My blocks of colour are in the background and act as a way to make the background more interesting and to make the names of the features stand out. Both of the examples also use smaller pictures on with borders. The first example uses the paint splatter idea again to outline the photos, the second example uses writing to make it look like someone has drawn on the ‘Poster’. I decided to use a border that made it look like the photos were being pealed off the page. I really like how the ‘Teenage’ magazine fitted the date into their title by putting it into the arrow in the ‘e’ of the ‘Masthead’. Also, how they put ‘The official youth magazine’ in different formats in each example, depending on the theme of the magazine.

3. ‘ NEO’ is the only UK magazine that reports on the Japanese charts and in general is the only magazine that gives information on Japanese and Korean bands and concerts in the UK. It is also a magazine dedicated to Anime, manga, games and asian films (basically, many parts of asian culture). The idea for my band came from a group called ‘Beat Crusaders’ who hid their identity with masks, I designed my masks to look like emotional anime faces which I felt made it relevent to compare it to NEO magazine. NEO’s ‘Masthead’ is quite large, and whether the figure is in front or behind the ‘Masthead’ changes with each magazine (depending on the picture). NEO often uses text that is straight and in line, but sometimes changes according to the photo (for example, in the largest example where it is slightly diagonal to make it work with the figure slashing a sword). The magazine also constantly has a border that changes colour with each magazine-I feel the border works nicely with the magazine and is also relevant to the magazine as it looks like the borders of a film. In comparison, my magazine is obviously going to look different because it is a real model on the cover and also because it is a music magazine. NEO uses more text on the cover then I do in my cover and so it can often look more packed and interesting, making mine plainer looking. NEO is also usually quite colourful because of the colouful pictures used. My aim from the beginning was to make quite a colouful cover to make it appealing to teenagers and to relate it to live and colourful J-POP and K-POP.

4. ‘ Oricon style’ is a fashion magazine which I chose to compare to my magazine because it often has a single figure on the front page, like mine. ‘Oricon’ tends to use a photo for their front cover and then adds text on top. It would have been good for me to do that, however, there was the problem of locations for photos and how my band would need to a bright and colourful background. ‘Oricon’ have proved in these examples that actually a normal photo with even a white or grey background can look good because of the bright text in front of it. In comparison, you could consider that my front cover is a bit to colourful and it could have looked better with a plainer backgorund. The straight and ‘in line’ text that has an oriental look which I aimed to achieve has also been used in the ‘Oricon’ front cover, which of course has been written in Japanese. Having the title of the magazine on the side of the page looks very stylish for the ‘Oricon’ magazine. It may have worked for my magazine, however, it probably would have just made the page over packed on one side and empty on the other. The colours that the models are wearing in ‘Oricon’ contrast really well with the colour of the text used. Unfortunately because of circumstances the model that I used for my front cover had to wear what she was wearing (so the outfit is quite grey compared to the bright colours).

5. ‘ Ponteen’ and ‘Ageha’ are two examples of Japanese magazines that are aimed at teenage girls. When I was creating my magazine I didn’t want it to be aimed at a particular gender, despite the fact that I used a lot of pink on my front cover (which I used to go with the theme of cherries). A few of the examples also use a single figure, but have done it in a better way to me because the figure has taken up more of the space on the page and is more noticeable that way. The colour themes that these examples have used are mostly pink, white and blue. My magazine also uses a fair bit of these colours, however, I also used different colours in the blocks of colour. They also use sparkly effects and large glistening text to attract female readers. All the examples have female models on their front cover, dressed in quite frilly clothes and with styled hair in a pretty ‘lolita’ style. My model obviously doesn’t have frills and the model is meant to be a musician rather than showing a fashion. In general, my magazine has much less sparkles and does not have huge text to cover the half the page. Because of this my page seems much plainer and empty compared to the examples, however, you could also turn that around and say that my front cover is much less overwhelming. I would hope that boys would be attracted to my magazine as well, not put off by the pink used in some of the text and background.

6. The first thing I noticed from the examples I had chosen was that the two examples are almost complete opposites. The first example has a dark theme with a dark purple background and purple text, the second example has a light theme with a white background with yellow and orange text. In a way one magazine could be winter themed and the other autumn themed. My magazine uses more spring colours if you compare it to the examples so it seems much brighter. The ‘Masthead’s of these magazines are much bigger compared to my magazine, interestingly, in the first example the ‘Mastheaad’ has been left in front of the figure and in the other example it has been put behind. Most likely because the figure in the first example would have covered too much of the ‘Masthead’. It may have been an idea to have a slightly bigger ‘Masthead’, however, it would have meant that there wasn’t enough room for the cherry illustration. The figure of my magazine is the smallest when comparing it to the two examples, however, I did try making the figure bigger when I was experimenting but I didn’t like how the front cover looked. By making the figure smaller it allowed more room for text and images on the cover, however, it has also made the cover look a bit plain compared to the examples as it seems that there is more space. The examples use a constant colour theme through the text that they have, because of this they have a neat and stylish theme and in general, the overall feel of the magazine is easier to see. My magazine has a range of colours, even though the text only used pink, blue, black, white and yellow. The different colour blocks in the background and the blue background makes the cover more colourful and also much brighter compared to the other two.

7. I chose this contents page to compare because it has a slightly oriental feel to it because of the arrangement of text on the page and also the first two pictures used. I chose this contents page because it is quite different to the other example and has a very different feel to the asian style examples (this one has a western feel to it) The first noticeable difference when comparing these three is the colours used, in the first and last examples they use quite dark colours like black and grey and then put brighter colours in their headers and page number (In the first, yellow, in the second, red). In my contents page I used much brighter colours, so in comparison, mine looks much brighter and may look like it is aimed at a younger audience. The first example has text at angles, which is similar to my header, however, I decided to keep the main part of my text straight to continue with the idea of lines of asian text in straight lines. The images are also at angles, which could be similar to the film strip idea I used. The second example has text which is much more in line, which is similar to the main part of text on my contents page. The overall appearance of this contents page is much neater, which is similar to my contents page, however, because of the colours and the arrangement of the header and film strip mine can seem much less in line, so much less neater. My favourite part of my contents page is the film strip idea because it is a creative way to place the images on the page, while still being able to identify which topic goes with which photo. By having a different colour on each page number it could be seen as too much colour, however, I think it goes well with the coloured blocks I used throughout my magazine and it makes it much brighter.

8. I chose this example because of the bright colours and original use of paint splatters, which has similarities to my contents page through the use of multiple colours. This example uses many colours in the text and paint splatters in a creative way. In comparison, my contents page looks much more organised because the example has text in various different fonts. I tried to use many colours in my contents page, however, despite the fact that the background is white, the example looks much more colourful because I used pastel colours where the example used bright colours. The first example and my contents page both have headers which are at angles, the last example has a straight header, however, it is colourful and a strange font to fit with the illustrations. Also, while the first example and mine uses headers which suggest at a contents page, the last example just states the name of the magazine. This example uses many colourful illustrations, which makes the page look bright and interesting. My contents page is also bright, but because of the colours and obviously no illustrations were used. Despite the fact that the page is covered in illustrations, it is still clear that the magazine is aimed at an elder audience (teenager and young adult) because of the style of the drawings. My magazine would also be aimed at this age range. I chose this example because of the bright illustrations and original feel of the contents page. I really like that the background is textured like wood because it makes the illustrations stand out and could suggest that they are drawn on the wood. I aimed for my contents page to suit the age range of teenagers to young adult while still suiting the J-POP and K-POP style, which is often bright and colourful and fun, despite the age of the singers or listeners. The font I used was to follow the style of the magazine, so I used the same font that I used for the front cover masthead with the header on the contents page.

9. I analyzed these examples in my initial research as I wanted to aim to arrange the photos in the style they are in the first example. My photos ended up in a much neater arrangement on the page, to go with the constant theme of straight lines of Japanese text. By having them in straight lines and also in colours blocks, I also felt that they fitted well with the colours blocks that I used on all the parts of my music magazine. The photos on my page were inspired by the example with colour backgrounds and single photos thrown on the page, however, I didn’t want to follow the example exactly so they came out slightly different. Although the examples, and many of the other examples I looked at, had white backgrounds, I decided to stick with the blue background that I used throughout my magazine. By doing this the double page spread looks more colourful and bright, but also faces the possibility of the page looking much less professional because of how smart white looks on the page. The example used colour blocks to put the text in-I also used this idea, however, I decided to make my blocks see-through so that the colours would merge and images could be seen through the text. My double page spread also has much more space in comparison with the example.

10. I took a lot of inspiration from the NEO magazine, which is the only magazine in the UK which provides interviews Japanese and Korean bands. I decided to stick with the colour background because NEO nearly always use a colour background with patterns when reporting on an interview. The example also shows their use of smaller black boxes to give little bits of information [see green arrows], which I used in my double page spread. Comparing the front covers completely on appearance, it looks like it would have been a bettter idea to have two clear borders as it helps to define the magazine, as well as a outline around my Masthead, which has been mentioned a lot in my evaluation.

11. The example is another example which uses a white background instead of a colour background, unlike mine. The example uses large green text as a colour theme through the pages (The same colour used in the masthead). I didn’t use the same colour, however, I used the same text to represent the band on the front cover and the double page spread. The example uses large photos and blocks of black text, which makes the page look smart and neatly arranged, however, it could also be considered that it makes the page look plain and boring as there is a lack of variety. Although my double page spread is very colourful, it is also very neatly arranged with everything in line. On the front cover of the example I really like the band of colour across the image (which otherwise would look like quite a boring image), however, it is debatable whether the front cover of my magazine would have looked better with a photo rather than a figure cut out and put on a colour background. My front cover is overall much more varied in colour and style.