Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does my media product use, challenge or develop forms and conventions of real media products?

As I've highlighted in the presentation, I used basic conventions while breaking others to create a product that is professional, looks like a real product, but has a unique look.
 To enable myself to apply convention, I first looked at other magazines and identified where there are similarities.  I also looked for differences to discover where conventions aren't strictly followed.  This would allow me to create a product that is unique and stands out from the rest  but not look so different that it's unrecognisable that it's a magazine.

  A consistent colour scheme is a convention, however the colour scheme itself can sometimes vary from product to product.  However, as exemplified by the screenshots below, pink and purple are hardly used as a colour scheme on the front of widespread rock magazines Kerrang!, NME, Mojo and Classic Rock.  The most common themes are black, white, red and yellow; with some exceptions.  I decided to break this convention because I wanted to create a product that looks different from the rest.  Furthermore, rock culture is about trying out new things and embracing the unique; therefore I thought it would be fitting to have a non-conventional colour scheme on the front of a rock magazine as it would reinforce one of the ideologies of the genre.  

I did, however, stick to conventions regarding layout, font styles and representations of the audience because I had to keep those things consistent with the genre to ensure that it was evident what it is.  This also allowed my magazine to adopt a professional look as it looks similar to other already existing products.

One thing that I think could be adjusted to make the front cover look more professional is to make the main image bigger/take up more space because I feel that my magazine has more blank space that other magazines.  Also, the artists' faces, on existing products, are bigger on the page than on my magazine. I think this is to allow potential buyers to see the artist more clearly which would be more likely to attract an audience as people want to read about their favourite artists. 

 To improve this, I would take an image in which the artists are closer to each other, allowing me to take a closer shot and still get all the people in the frame.  For instance, I would have one model stand slightly in front like on the 'Green Day' issue of Kerrang!  This way, more of the space would be filled and it would have a more professional look as it would follow conventions more closely.