Thursday 25 February 2010

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

The genre of my magazine is a Grime music magazine. Grime is a sub-genre of rap/hip-hop so my magazine will share some characteristics with this style of magazine such as The Source and XXL. However my magazine has also challenged a number of forms and conventions as other hip-hop magazines as Grime embraces different ideals and ideology than traditional American hip-hop. The Source focusses more on the glamourous side of hip-hop as shown in this picture of a Source cover:

Grime favours a more "underground" and "real" style. American audiences prefer to see the glamourous successful musician whereas British audiences prefer to see original artists that stay true to their "real" ideals and are not mainstream. The fonts I used represent the non-mainstream aesthetic as they are cracked, bold and dark in colour which reflects the urban nature of Grime music. The main font might remind the reader of a run-down part of a city such as London which is where much Grime music originates from. I also used a graffiti style font which is common in urban areas. Hip-hop artists are stereotypically give off an aggressive image which is often reflected in their music and grime is no different. You can this by this compilation of famous popular rappers:


Friday 12 February 2010

Magazine Contents Page Finished

Magazine Front Cover Finished

Production Log 6


Here you can see the second page of my double page spread. I have broken up the large chunks of text with interesting quotes from the interview; I used different sizes for different parts of these quotes to emphasise certain parts. I kept the colour scheme to red and black and included text around the picture so that it did not seem empty.

Production Log 5


Here you can see the first page of my double page spread. I have chosen to use a large picture of Aaron filling the page and putting a large quote on top of it. The varying sizes of the different parts of the quotes make it more exciting and I have also included a humourous caption at the top of the page of a twisted box which makes also adds to the exciting feeling of the page.

Production Log 4


Here you can see my finished contents page. I decided to present my contents page as 2 columns with descriptions of each article and some pictures to accompany them. I used similar fonts to the ones I had already used to keep the theme of it being "underground" and "not mainstream".

Production Log 3


Here you can see my finished front cover. I have neatened up the presentation at the bottom, I have added a black box running along the bottom side. I have also added some more straplines at the bottom right which helps the cover look more full.

Production Log 2


Here you can see I have added a picture and modified the colour and size of the text. The flourescant green stands out well against the red background and is also a colour often associated with grime music. I have added straplines to the side also using the same colour scheme. I have added the subtitle "THE KING RETURNS" underneath the main headline "AZA" to give some clue as to the content of the article (rapper AzA's return to the music scene). I have added a list of other contents below as well as a box containing the issue number, month and price of the magazine.