Examining the conventions and styles of
existing media products is essential when trying to create a successful text
under the same genre. I created a college magazine front cover, contents page
followed by a music magazine; front cover, double page spread and contents
page. Using the skills I acquired and developed I identified the conventions of
existing product in order to produce my A2 coursework, where I created a
fantasy film; poster, trailer and magazine front cover.
Analysing existing texts was essential when
identifying the different conventions for my AS coursework. I looked in to many
examples of college magazine covers and compared/contrasted them with each
other. I Identified that on the front cover of the magazines there were very
bright colours all creating a happy tone of the college, another feature was
the use of photographs in the college environment also the use of the college
logo. The contents pages had a basic discourse structure with one or two images
and a contents list. When creating my own college magazine front cover I
followed these conventions and took a medium close up of a sixth form student
wearing colourful clothing. I then went on to produce the rest on Photoshop
creating a basic font for the masthead and placing the college logo as a main
feature. I used the logo from Bodmin College with the colours red, yellow and
black, I found that this was effective and made the school genre recognisable
which was something that I identified when looking in to the conventions. The
contents page was created using Photoshop again and I used a basic white
background and black simple headline with page numbers. I used simple imagery
of a student working and the front of the college. These were all conventions I
had previously identified. The font was very simplistic and the layout I chose
was very boring and was perhaps as exciting as it could have been.
I found lots of examples of existing film
magazine front covers to complete my convention analysis on. I asked my target
audience what they thought would be the most important features of a front
cover. I identified on the front of Empire that the masthead was a main focus,
often having an effect on (such as shattering glass) the use of attractive
models as the main image the camera angle often changed but a close up was used
often. Very good quality photographs, which have been edited. I took my photograph
on a SLR camera making the image look professional; I took a close up of the
main protagonist as my main image. This fits the convention of a close up on
the front cover. I used a more layered layout on the front cover to make the front
cover more effective. I used golds, browns and reds as my colour palette to
follow the fantasy genre through my magazine cover.
