My media product follows some of the codes and conventions of a magazine, however they do not follow all of them. The masthead on my front cover is one word, 'BREAK' which is situated in the left hand corner and fills most of the width of the page. The price and issue date are by the masthead, however they are not the conventional 11pt size, they are similar at 12pt. My magazine does not contain a puff or buzz words because I was unsure how to fit them in with the contents of the magazine. Although in a way my magazine does offer something extra as the first issue is free and from my contents page it says that there are maps available near the back. My main coverline is the largest text on the front, other than the title which is conventional to magazines and it anchors the meaning of the one main image. Furthermore there is a subline below each of the coverlines to offer additional information about the article and also to intrigue the reader. The coverlines also frame the main image, however the main coverline runs across the girls face which is not conventional. Finally there there is a barcode in the bottom right hand corner and there is a small number of colours used for the simple colour scheme.
My contents page is set out into four columns which lies across one page. The largest image on my contents page does not relate to the main feature article which in not conventional for the contents page. The name of the magazine is not at the top of my page however the word contents is. Another way that my contents page does not follow the codes and conventions is that the text is slightly bigger than the standard 11pt, I did this because I had no more stories left to fill up the page so I made my font size slightly larger. Under the name of each article I have given more detail about what the article is actually about, which is a smaller font than the article's title.
In the construction of my magazine front cover I used the programme Photoshop. I had used this programme previous to the work, so it was quite easy to make my front cover. To create the front page I only ever used the basic tools as they were all I required to complete my work. I created shapes using the rectangle tool and the ellipse tool. I did this to give my front cover a more visual appeal. Another tool I used was fill, which I used to fill in the shapes with the colours for my colour scheme. To construct my contents page I used the programme Quark Xpress. As I had never used this programme before, I found it quite difficult to use at first. When setting up the page I needed I set the column number from one to three so the layout would be conventional. Also I had to remember not to design the contents page on the master page. To import pictures I had to make what looked like a text box for the image and then right click, and import an image from my files. Once I got the hang of the programme it was quite simple and easy to use to construct my contents page.
I feel that my strengths are using the programmes which I used to create my school magazine; photoshop and Quark Xpress. However I am more confident in using photoshop over Quark Xpress because I have used the programme prior to the coursework. However I do think that one of my weaknesses was the general layout of the contents page and front cover, as for example the text on the front cover ran over the girls face. So to improve on this for my music magazine I will design several layouts and choose the best one, so that no text covers the face on the main image. I would also improve the images that I will use by taking several of the same thing instead of one so there is a selection to choose from. On the other hand I thought that the articles that I had to come up with to fill my magazine were done quite well as well as my coverlines.
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