1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
To plan for my music magazine I had to do some research on several other music magazines. Music
magazines I looked at and started to analyse was ones likes VIBE, NME, XXL and Mojo. To get a really
clear idea on features in the magazines and how the layout and presentation is laid out, I went out
and brought the VIBE magazine and used the XXL magazine we had in class. I used these two,
physically because they’re both Hip Hop magazines and that’s the type of genre my music magazine
will be. By analysing both magazine’s it gave me a better idea on how the front cover of a Hip Hop
magazine should look and what features a double page spread should have and how the layout of a
contents page should look. This was important for me to make sure I researched because different
genres of music magazines are presented and laid out in completely different ways. For example the
front cover of a pop magazine would look very bright and overcrowded, in comparison with a hip
hop magazine. By looking at these two types of music magazines it gave me more inspiration on
how I should think about laying the pages in my magazine. One thing that I noticed when I was
analysing all the type of genres of magazines was that they all had similar conventions.
I wanted to find out more about what the public thought, what genre of music magazine’s they
invest in and what age range they would fall under. To do this bit of research I produced some
primary research, a questionnaire. This helped me find out more knowledge on what the public
thought overall. I also included questions that applied more to my music magazine, to help me start
to think about how I could start to design it. For example I included three possible master head
designs and asked the public which one do they prefer more. My questionnaire was handed out
tomales and females as that’s who I’m targeting my music magazine at. Doing this bit of research
had a big impact on the features my final magazine would include. For example photos to use, price I
would charge and what master head appealed more to my target audience.
Below are a print screen of the questionnaire I designed and the different versions of master
heads I designed. I handed both these things out to the public, to see what the public response
was towards my ideas. This helped me come closer to making my final decisions on what I would
include in my Hip hop magazine.

2. I wanted to do some research that was specifically for my front page cover. For this I did research on
current hip hop artists and analyse their styles and hip hop trends. I wasn’t sure about how I should
style my model at first so by analysing what other hip hop artists wore, it helped me to get a better
understanding on how I could style my model. This included what my model would wear, how her
makeup should be done and how I would position her. I also did some research on front covers on
current hip hop magazines. This bit of researched helped me understand about following a colour
scheme, usually throughout the magazines I looked at the maximum of colours used were up to
three and these were usually red, white and black. Underneath is research that did to help me gain a
better knowledge on how I should present my model for my front cover.
I created a mood board to help me feel more inspired about making my Hip hop magazine. My mood
board was based on more of American hip hop artists/styles/music and rap. America is where hip
hop originally originated from, so when I was researching research on this, I found loads of pictures
and information that related with American Hip hop. This helped me again on how I could style my
model for my front page as I noticed that over the years the trend of hip hop didn’t adjust a huge
amount and is still kept today but is seen as more of ‘old skool’ look.