In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms & Conventions Of Real Media Products?

1. In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
When producing my magazine I decided that I wanted to challenge some of
the more common music magazine conventions, such as having both males
and females within magazines and using certain features on the front cover to
make it look more like other Pop music magazines. When it came to creating
how I wanted my front cover to appear I knew that after looking at a large
range of different magazine front covers for inspiration that I really wanted to
use the Adele Rolling Stone magazine to help inspire my cover.
This is because when I thought about the audiences that a cover like this may
attract I felt that it could be helpful tool to use as an audience attracter if my
magazine was going to be sold. I feel that this is possible because one there
is a hugely well know international star on the front looking very enticing
through her facial expression, which will mean that normal Rolling Stone
readers would want to pick it up. The second reason I thought it could be a
good idea is because I feel that by having such a dramatic close up of a
musician shows an innocence about them that will attract people to the
picture as it is something that isn’t regularly seen on a music magazine. But it
is something that can commonly be seen on fashion magazines such as
Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. By targeting the magazine with conventions that
appealed more to a fashion magazine within the images I felt that as this is
the type of magazine I buy I can be creative with it and incorporate it into my
magazine while challenging some the music magazine conventions. I thought
that by using what I know from fashion magazines and what I have learnt
from my research into the music magazines that I would be able to attract a
larger audience as in a basic break down of the typical readers of a magazine
like this they would be the regular readers of the magazine, the people who
are attracted by the picture of the celebrity and the people who are attracted
to the magazine due to seeing the picture and wanting to know more about

2. what the article is saying inside about them especially when the magazine has
“exclusive” on the front.
Within this magazine I really wanted to keep all of it clean and minimal but
especially the front cover, but still have enough on it so that I would attract
people to it. I did this with the cover by making the majority of the cover my
models face. This resulted in me only being able to place articles underneath
and down the left side of her face so that she could clearly be seen. I did still
manage to include the major stories within the magazine on the cover such
as the exclusive interview with the singer who was my model as well as some
articles about other well-known musicians that would attract audiences of the
pop genre such as Ariana Grande, John Legend and Katy Perry. I made sure
that on the cover to make sure that they would be seen like any other
magazine would do I made sure to highlight the stars names as they would
also be able to help attract people to the magazine who are interested.
For my contents page again I managed to keep it simple by having a limited
amount of pictures, but I made sure I had enough on the page so that there
was a balance between the amount of text on the page and the number of
pictures. When designing the contents page I also wanted to challenge a
small convention of having text on the majority of the page as I felt it would
be more appropriate ad would stick with the theme I wanted through my
magazine that I have created to have half of an item made with pictures and
the other half text so that it is balanced and more colourful due to the
pictures as I didn’t want to have a large amount of colour within any feature
but the pictures.
For my double page spread I continued the theme of keeping it balanced by
having half of my double page spread as a picture and half text that if it was
a full article would then continue onto the next page. From asking my peers
within the class and people who would be classed within the target audience
for the magazine I gained the knowledge that this is a layout hat most people

3. prefer when the articles are quite long in full as the large pictures help to
break down the massive amounts of text. When creating this piece I created it
again after being inspired by another double page spread I had seen, as it
was very cleanly set out and had a nice balance to it.
When creating my music magazine one of the main stereotypes that I have
stuck to be for example is that I have used a very appealing model for the
front cover of my magazine. She has the stereotypical attractive features,
which include Blonde flowing hair, which in my sister’s case is very curly,
which can set her apart from white women as it is a natural hairstyle that can
be very difficult to recreate with Caucasian hair. I wanted to keep her natural
hair style due to it being a feature that can set her apart as my model from
other models due to majority of Caucasian models having straight or wavy
hair within a shot as it can be seen as more sexual due to it been controlled
and sleek. She also has bright blue eyes and other typically attractive features,
which make her very appealing to they eye. These features allow her to look
effortless within the picture that created the image I wanted after being
inspired by the Rolling Stone cover. To an extent this may mean that I have
stuck to the sexualising women to an extent within my magazine as I wanted
to use an attractive model for the front cover and double page spread of my
magazine, as I knew they would attract an audience.
Within the production of my whole magazine I have challenged conventions
of magazines by using only female models, I wanted to do this as it
challenges the conventions but does also show within my magazine the
lengths that people can go to within articles for example I have the more
structured pictures within my magazine such as the close up shots of my
sister and the many different types I tried with Devon, when I ended up
choosing one of the more structured ones instead of natural ones. I then
contrasted this by choosing one of Tyler and Olivia looking like they are in

4. rehearsal because I wanted to show that women within magazines aren’t
always posing and putting on a show for a camera when it is in front of them.
For my magazine I have included key conventions of magazines. The ones I
have included within my entire magazine include a main image, colour, which
is mainly through pictures. Typography especially within my double page
spread, a masthead, a main coverline, a barcode and pictures to use within
both my double page spread and contents page