Evaluation Question 1

Q1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Bookworm is a predominantly literary magazine, focusing on the prose than the poetry as steered by the questionnaire analysis, undertaken by the target audience of young adults/teenagers. Representation of this particular social group was primarily triggered by analyzing an array of literary magazines featuring bold and dark color schemes, plethora of covers introspective, pensive, and devoid of the enthusiasm that wasn’t synonymous with a post-modern youth and drives them away from picking up a literary magazine that takes itself too seriously.

Hegemonic adult ideologies assume teenagers are too consumed by social media and video games to develop critical thinking skills and a view on the world that is helped shaped by reading. It is also believed that they would be more interested in pursuing genres such as ‘teen’, ‘fashion’ or ‘sports’ but Bookworm defies that as a genre targeting its focus towards young adult readers.

The main image of the magazine cover does conform to the conventions somewhat, the focus is conventionally being either on one particular person or on the prop of books. My magazine cover features a full shot of a girl reading a book, surrounded by many others, just to attain best of both conventions. There is, however, no eye contact between the reader and the main image solely so that the reader knows that the center of attention are books. Photographing an unknown model for the cover, although featuring popular writers is the norm, was for the benefit of the target audience as they would find that person more relatable and inviting than a celebrity. The cover also contains a barcode and a website for the benefit of the audience if they wish to access additional information about the magazine which has not been spotted in many other literary magazines.

In addition, the color scheme I chose was in the shades of orange brown and white, away from the usual color schemes displaying dark colors. I made the decision not only retaining the results of the questionnaire that voiced the majority opinion of my target audience but also the fact that the color orange contains connotations of energy, enthusiasm and creativity, terms commonly associated with youth.

Moreover, as is the convention the content page was divided into two columns, one providing contact information and the other previewing the elements contained inside. Including a section for contact information was essential as it allows the young audience to explore and submit their talent and be appreciated for their effort with those who share their interests. Its important to provide the audience with such a platform as Neil Postman (1985) argues that youth have become increasingly empowered and are no longer seen as “economically worthless, but emotionally priceless.”

Lastly, the main spread too, in one way challenge the codes of conventions by incorporating the orange and white color, non-monochromatic scheme. In terms of layout, as is the norm, the headline was placed at the top, along with a stand first and a by line. The main article features reviews and an excerpt, regarding literature targeted towards young adults. 

In recent times, young people mainly communicate with still images through social media apps such as Instagram and Snapchat. Through daily exposure, its what they're most familiarized with and prefer pictures over long paragraphs of text, which is why going against the codes and conventions of the main spread featuring mostly text, I decided to include more and larger sized images on the main spread to maintain interest of the audience.