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

Obviously when designing and throughout the creation of my magazine the intention was to make it look as authentic as possible and to incorporate every necessary convention so that it was up to the standard of existing products. I found a number of traits that applied to a big percentage of magazines including features such as a large dominant masthead and a main image. My aim was that when the magazine was finished it would feature all the familiar conventions but alongside an unusual colour scheme and a number of innovative layout ideas which would therefore make it different to all other existing magazines.

MASTHEAD+COLOURSCHEME

This is the magazine that has been the main inspiration for my own. The first thing that caught my eye was the colours and the masthead which really influenced my use of colour and design. Seeing that NME (which is a hugely popular music magazine) could use this sort of unusual colour scheme and it was a success meant I know there is a desire within the market for this sort of interesting layout and colour scheme which is why I wanted to imitate this look. My title also uses a gradient overlay so that it fades from purple to pink whilst moving across the word, it really stands out and although is seemingly quite girly it says elsewhere on the front cover that this is the ‘Femme Fatale Edition’ and therefore is more acceptable. I would have my front cover colour scheme quite different every week so that although the layout and name with become distinctive people will like to see a fresh batch of colours brought onto the scene so that it completely mixes it up and keeps it interesting.

IMAGES I wouldn’t say the images are particularly typical of a music magazine as they’re all quite glamorous ‘photo shoot’ photos rather than using a number of photos from gigs etc. which you would often find in a music magazine as obviously the touring and gigging is a huge part of the music industry. I did this sheerly because of the fact it wasn’t really possible for me to photograph an authentic looking gig and the content I had planned didn’t really require these sort of photographs anyway. I do think that, if included, they would have been an asset to the content of my magazine but they aren’t essential.

COSTUMES

The costumes are, again, quite glamorous portraying an image that would be associated with popstars and celebrities in general which is where a fashion influence comes into the magazine as an extra aspect and a way to attract a new market to the magazine rather than just hard core music fans. They differ from the usual attire seen in the music magazines but most of these magazines are based on rock/indie or alternative music so they will obviously dress slightly differently to artists making contemporary pop music.

FONTS

When looking through a number of magazines from varied genres, I noticed that they use a number of different fonts that all work well together and can use them on one page without it looking too messy or inconsistent so I adapted this idea and used numerous of different styles to make the presentation more interesting and keep the authenticity of a real magazine.

MUSIC GENREPop is the main music genre of my magazine and I think that once reading the content and seeing the entire image that is put across this becomes quite obvious. This is because of the look of the featuring artists and the more mainstream content that will appeal to a wide category of people. I have chosen this genre of music as it was something I’m more familiar with and can therefore present it in the best way possible, also there are no existing pop magazines (to my knowledge) that have a sophisticated edge and can appeal to the teenage/young adult generation.