Evaluation

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

For my final front cover, I wanted it to come across authentic with a hint of outlaw to match the title of 'Renegade'. The word 'Renegade' itself connotes a person who betrays and organisation or set of principles and is in their own respect dangerous. I feel that this fits perfectly with the common representations of the hip-hop music culture and I wanted this to reflect through my magazine front cover. Therefore I decided to ask my models (Aaron and Cameron) to position themselves in a manner that conveys this non-caring attitude. This has been shown through the body language of the people on the cover. Both males are leaning against the brick wall behind them, conveying their relaxed, care free attitude. The emotionless facial expressions that they are portraying also fits well with the unworried stance that is being represented. If you look closely at the people on the cover itself, you may notice that only one model is looking directly at the camera. The direct eye contact and folded arms creates a sense of defence that I also feel fits well with the tone of the magazine. Most hip-hop magazine front covers convey a similar barrier of defence between the audience and the people on the cover, which I think automatically puts the magazine or genre of music on a higher level compared to other music magazine genres such as 'indie'.

I placed the bar code in the bottom right corner so that no attention is withdrawn from the main focus of the magazine. Although I have not included a price on my magazine, I think that £.01.19 is the correct price for 'Renegade' to be sold at. I say this because I want the magazine itself to appeal to all kinds of people that love this genre of music regardless of income. I decided to place the names of the talent on the cover in the same manner as a currently famous icon in the hip-hop culture to reinforce the reality of the magazine. Most current hip-hop music magazines use the same font throughout the entire front cover. Although I have stuck with a main font, I thought that it would be a good idea to use a font called 'learning curve' to emphasise the key information that I want my audience to notice on the magazine cover. Examples of this are 'Drake and Jhene' and 'the greatest'. I thought that highlighting powerful words would reassure my audience that there is no other culture like hip-hop.

I feel that my music magazine challenges other, real music magazines because I have used a different style and colour scheme to other music magazines. If you look at famous hip hop magazines such as 'VIBE' or 'XXL' you may notice that they seem to splash many various colours and themes on their music magazine covers. However, this is not the approach that I wanted my magazine to take. I feel that using a cool, blue tone throughout creates a sense of stability and collectivity. I feel that using too many colours could confuse the audience and make the page look unappealing. The dullness of the page allows the title RENEGADE to stand out even further and I feel that keeping one colour scheme throughout each cover of any form of publication can make the magazine more recognisable to the audiences.

I think that my music magazine may develop other music magazines because I have decided to include many famous hip hop artists names on my cover. This contrasts with many other successful music magazines because they only tend to feature one popular name on the front cover. However this was not the approach that I wanted my magazine to take. I feel that using many current artists will attract a wider audience and create an intended theme of freedom. Going against other typical front covers also goes in the line with the consistent reckless theme that I have tried to portray throughout my entire production, like I have repeated many times.