The document discusses the author's media product, a magazine, and how it uses and develops conventions from real magazines. The author chose conventions like bold masthead fonts, central cover artists, and color schemes to make the magazine appealing to its target market. The author also experimented with some non-conventional elements, like more cover content and an "edgy" masthead font. Overall, the author aimed to balance familiar conventions with a fresh design to engage readers and succeed as a new magazine.

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

2. Pre-existing Magazine of Similar Style My cover lines are similar to this pre-existing magazine to some extent. For example I have used the convention of the cover artist’s name being in a bigger, different coloured font. However, this issue has less content on the cover than mine, with a larger, closer image. My masthead is similar to this issue of vibe, a bold four letter word in red – used to draw attention and give the magazine a contemporary edgy feel. Another convention of hip-hop magazines in general that I have included in my work is the ‘stern’ expression used by artists for the cover image. This is often to prove how ‘gangster’ the artist is, to reflect the genre of music. Perhaps due to this image just being a digital copy, it does not have a barcode on. However, during my planning and research I found that the common convention was for a lower right or left positioned barcode.

3. My Magazine Title For my masthead, I feel I did follow the conventions of existing hip-hop magazines. For example, the colour choice of red is used across the genre – magazines such as Vibe, Complex and XXL use a red and white colour scheme for the masthead. This should make the genre of my magazine easier to identify from a glance – therefore catching the attention of my target market as they associate this sort of title with Hip-Hop. Also, the definition of my title in terms of Hip-Hop terminology means to have an excitement or buzz around something. Therefore I feel it is quite suitable as it is an emerging magazine and needs to have that ‘buzz’ in order to succeed. Also, another convention I followed was to only use a small word for the title – as it is rare to find magazines of this genre with more than one word for the title, and many only have 3-4 letters (i.e VIBE, XXL). Again, this allows the reader to associate my magazine with other similar ones and therefore attract their attention. I chose to also follow the convention of almost every magazine – to put the masthead at the top of the page. I made this decision due to the practical element of how the magazine would be sold – on a shelf behind other magazines where often the only visible part will be the top so therefore this needs to stand out.

4. My Magazine Layout I tried to incorporate the conventional layout style into my own design – however also used elements that do not follow conventions. I have positioned my artist centrally, taking up the majority of cover space – as in most similar magazines. This is to reiterate that he is the cover story, and to attract reader’s attentions. The rest of my cover lines and additional content information are dotted around the page in order to reduce the amount of ‘dead space’ to give a more professional look. I also highlighted who the cover artist was by using a larger, different coloured font for the cover line displaying their name. This appears to be a common convention in most other magazines too – which is discovered during my research and planning.

5. My Magazine Artist’s Costume I chose to base my artist’s outfit on the style of male white rappers. For inspiration, I looked over images of rappers such as Eminem, Asher Roth and Mac Miller. I found conventions throughout such as hoods up, flat peak hats etc. I then tried to incorporate this into my artist’s look. The style is based mainly on Eminem, with ‘sweat pants’ and a hoodie, a style he is often sporting.

6. My Magazine Font Style Masthead – N-Gage Main Cover Line – IMPACT Cover Lines - Eras Bold ICT General Text - Eras Medium ICT My masthead font was purposely chosen to be quite edgy and different in order to make the magazine appeal more than magazines with standard titles (going against the convention). My main cover line then follows the conventions of other magazines I have looked at, a different font, in a bigger, bolder version – in order to draw attention (usually to star names). For the rest of the text I just used easy to read, however not too simplistic text to make sure both the magazine was kept interesting yet clear and informative.

7. My Magazine Colour Scheme I decided from the start to stick a palette of 3 colours – this follows the convention of most music magazines and allows mine to avoid over clashing of colours. My choice follows the conventions of many magazines of similar style/genre – such as Vibe, XXL, Complex etc. Again, this should help my target market to recognise my magazine as credible and potentially appealing.