2. Q1) In what ways does your music magazine use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing
music magazines
• I have decided to similar codes and conventions
present within publications such as Top of the Pops
due to clarity of genre it is able to adhere through
various forms and uses of vibrant colours,
colloquialism, celebrities and brands featured as well
as through the densely packed front page and
contents of the magazine.
• An example of colloquialism within this includes
words and phases such as cool, hip, hot etc and
therefore I have picked up on this idea and adapted it
to my publications by using terms such as celeb goss,
new kids on the block, and they’re blowing the charts
on top of the use of rhetorical questions that create a
talkative tone.
• The lures/ cover lines include topics such as fashion,
boy friends, and pop music that would commonly
appeal to my target audience of 13-16 year old girls.
Techniques presented on the cover and contents page
follow a similar layout to Top of the Pops through the
use of colours and the use of “puffs” in order to
present the information in a highlighted form.
3. When browsing a number of different This is my masthead, placed at the top of the magazine, controlling a majority of space, like how TOTP convey
issues released by TOTP, a few had their masthead. This is ideal as it will not be missed as it stands out in stores. Also being at the top clearly identifies
catchy straplines, which successful the publication to be a magazine. Mixmag masthead is more simplistic, whereas mine rejects this feel being
appealed to readers and therefore designed more thoroughly. Mixmag has taken target audience into consideration to a brief extent when creating
increased sales. I felt this worked this masthead, yet, I have taken target audience into a more intense extent, with two conveying fonts and
tremendously well and went on to background colour and bolder. Despite these differences, my magazine develops mastheads of existing music
develop this feature in my magazine. I magazines further.
challenged TOTP as I did not imitate
their feature, I changed the language
and added features like “10 pages of
shopping heaven” which will
successfully appeal to my target
audience as they are a generation
which love to be updated and are all I have imitated common, basic
female. conventions of existing music
magazines, such as barcodes,
date of release and price.
Another convention which I have These allow the publication to
used is the use of lures in existing be identified as a magazine.
magazine. I believe this was an
essential, common convention and
my magazine would not be as
successful without it. However, the
challenging part of my lure is the
use of a catchy slogan, and
repetition of the slogan. The
repetition acts like a shadow and
as if it is being shouted loudly, like
music being played loud.
Like existing magazines, I have used
eye-catching images which creates
Another convention which I have strong appeal for the audience. This
developed is the convention of builds on artists communication and
giving away free gifts in order to interaction with the audience. Despite
persuade audience to keep this development of existing magazines,
updated and buy the issues. I have I have adhered to the feature of several
challenged this in a unique way as images and a busy page, similarly to
with music magazines it is usually TOTP
music CD’s which are being given
away, however, I have decided to
run competitions.
