The document discusses how the student's media product of a music magazine uses and develops conventions of real music magazines. It analyzes the forms and conventions of magazines like Top of the Pops and Vibe to layout the design and style. Key elements like the masthead, cover lines, barcode, images and contents page were researched and implemented following industry standards to make the magazine realistic. The double page spread uses techniques like bold titles, transparent images, and columns to break up the text and draw attention.

1. AS MEDIA STUDIES
EVALUATION
QUESTION 1

2.  Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In designing my music magazine, creating a front cover, contents page and
double page spread. I had to look at other well branded music magazines to
analyse forms and conventions in helping me layout the design and style of
my own magazine. I decided to look at Top of the Pops, We love pop and
Vibe, Vibe is a R&B magazine but I wanted to look at pop music magazines
and a R&B magazine so I could see the difference. Although Top of the Pops
and Vibe are different they follow very similar conventions. Both company’s
gave me ideas and inspiration, I took the conventions from Top of the Pops
and used them in my magazine to the best of my ability. I decided to have
my magazine masthead in capital letters in white with a black outline. I
believe that the masthead was big and bold which would attract the
audience. The masthead has to be recognisable to the byer as my masthead
then becomes the logo for the magazine. In my research I found that
mastheads were quite important as they tend to cover parts of it with the
model and image, whereas on my magazine I decided to put the masthead
over the models image to draw more attention to the audience.

3.  Q1.
 Most magazines have cover lines on the image this helps draw attention
to the main article within the magazine. Cover lines are another code and
convention of magazines. I used words like exclusive and win to attract
the audience and make it appeal to them. Cover lines are often a quote
from the band or a related fact or even just a line stating what the article
is. “HIDDEN SECRETS REVEALED”. During my research I found that most
magazines would have a strap line or a section along the very top of
underneath the masthead. It is often about what is going on inside the
magazine. In my magazine, it just says “The mag you want” this makes
the reader want to buy the magazine more. The barcode is an another
essential part of magazines. I included a barcode to make the magazine
more realistic. I created the barcode on fireworks. The central image is
the most dominant feature on the front cover and is a code and
convention of magazines. The pose I used was to show the power the
model had to engage the audience with eye contact. Again I used a puff
with a free giveaway, this was all to attract the audiences attraction.

4.  Q1.
 Whilst making my contents page I researched Top of the Pops music magazines. I
did this to find there forms and conventions to then use them and challenge myself
to use them in my own magazine. This is the magazine contents page I used for my
inspiration. Within the Top of the Pops music magazines a lot of the contents page is
placed in box’s. Within my contents page I wanted to include a note from the editor
to inform the readers what this issue of the magazine is going to be about. This was
used in the Top of the Pops magazine and I wanted to use it also as I thought it
worked well. In top of the pops magazines there are several images used, I decided
to only use two models in my contents page as I didn’t want to take the focus away
from the main article. I used shapes within my contents page as I didn’t want
everything to look block, which is why I used a star, circle, oval rectangle and a
rectangle. I used a pop artist font through out the magazine for the masthead for
my contents page. I matched the colours up with the models blouse which made
the colour scheme work well. During my research I found that all top of the pops
magazines had WE LOVE THIS as a title instead of contents I believe this was
because they didn’t want a similar convention to all other magazines. The “we love
this” states what has been implied in the press this week. With the main image of
the model on the contents page I decided to add a cover line to the image of the
model this was to highlight what the main article was about. I felt this made the
reader want to buy this magazine more as it gives them an insight to the main
article. Within the contents page I added a website page to find out more
information, and offering exclusive material. I added another image of a different
artist so that there wasn’t just one article about one artist.

5.  Q1.
 I made the phrase XCLUSIVE INTERVIEW as the title for my double page
spread as it allows the reader to know that the article is entirely about the
artist. This isn’t a typical convention of a music magazine as most magazines
have the name of the band as a headline or something similar to advertise who
they are. With the title in a large font in bold writing it makes it more
prominent to the audience and sticks out more. The images in the background
of my magazine are all fairly transparent where as the image in the middle of
the double page spread, the model is transparent on the bottom half of the
page but the top half of her body isn’t this makes the images stand out a lot
more and breaks the text up instead of it looking so block. I put the questions
in italic so that the questions and answers stand out from each other and you
can distinguish the difference. I placed the magazine title in the top left hand
corner of the double page spread to remind the reader that the double page
spread is an interview. Like most double page spreads I decided to use a main
image on the right hand side of the page but then I also used four different
images in transparent to add to the background. I used columns for my
interview this makes the text less block again and makes the reader stay
focused.