Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For the cover page I adapted the typical layout of billboard magazine which usually shows the artist featured in the magazine main story as the cover image with an additional piece of text summarizing the contents of the cover story.
Throughout the magazine I have used features of Billboard magazine and Top of the pops magazine. Both magazines target music fans, however the audience for Top of the Pops is teenage girls, similar to my magazine, Fusion. I included the typical media conventions such as a masthead, main cover image, headline, date and barcode. All of which feature on real magazines.
For the contents page I focused on the layout of Top of the pops magazine. Like my magazine, Top of the Pops attracts a teen audience by including clip art arrows, posters and competitions. My magazine includes these three things. I used arrows to point out key features of the magazine such as the exclusive cover story, competition and included posters. I learnt that these are key aspects which attract a teenage audience through my research into different magazines.
I used pink colours to connote femininity. This idea is already used in many magazines such as Girlfriend which targets a female audience. I chose bright, pastel colours for some of the text to connote youth and pop culture.
The model I used represents a typical modern teenager. Someone who has big dreams and is fashion conscious. In most media products, this group of people are usually pictured smiling and the lighting is normally high intensity. These are ideas which I used in my own photo shoot. During editing, I airbrushed my pictures like other media products to show the image that these girls are stereotypically represented as having the perfect image. In my photoshoot I incorporated all of this by using close ups and full body shots.
the layout of my double page is based on billboard because I liked the simplistic ideas. The artist is usually used as the background picture with the article layered on top. I noticed during my research that a quote from the article is often used as the headline for the article so I developed this in my own work. My article features details about my stars musical inspiration, fashion and love life as these are topics commonly featured in teenage music magazines. For example, the boys advice featured in Top of the pops magazine.
Finally, the fonts I used for the masthead were inspired by Top of the Pops magazine who used chunky fonts which blend into the background. I downloaded a font from dafont.com which I thought connoted pop culture as the writing as a bubble effect. The colours I used are bright and girly just like the contents page of Top of the pops. These colours will appeal to my target audience which is teenage girls.
