The document discusses how the author's media product uses and challenges conventions of real magazines. It describes including common magazine elements like a masthead, page numbers, fonts, and color scheme to make the product look like a real magazine. The author incorporated aspects of mastheads from other pop magazines and used a bright color scheme typically seen in magazines targeted at females. Different fonts were used for the masthead, cover lines, and contents page to separate elements and engage readers in a style consistent with other pop magazines. Photography was done in a professional studio setting mimicking how artists are portrayed in real magazines. Overall, the author aimed to follow conventions from real pop magazines to make their media product look authentic.

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

2. All magazines contain these elements…
• A masthead
• Page numbers
• Different fonts
• A main colour scheme
• Style of photography
• Writing style
• Pull quotes
• Cover lines
• A barcode
These elements are needed for a magazine to actually look like a magazine. They are also
features I had in my magazine. The way they are used in a magazine says a lot about the
audience and who the magazine is aimed at.

3. Mastheads
These are all mastheads from other pop
magazines. The masthead for my magazine
is the third one down. It is clear to see that I
have followed a similar style to all these
other pop magazine mastheads. I have
incorporated a bit of each. The boxes
behind the actual masthead (which have
become a feature of the title and rest of the
magazine) came from the different coloured
circles in the letters of the Billboard
magazine masthead. The capitalised font
came from that used by the Top of the Pops
magazine (as did the use of the word ‘pop’
in my magazine name). I also put the artists
featured on the cover of my magazine behind my masthead as this is featured in all other
pop magazines. This makes my magazine fit in and comply with the traditional conventions
of pop magazines.

4. Colour Scheme
In my magazine the colour scheme was bright colours. I used pink,
blue, orange, purple, yellow, red and green throughout my
magazine. This goes against the usual conventions as most pop
magazines stick to around three colours and use that as their colour
scheme (but use three different colours in each issue), but I have
used bright colours which is always apparent in pop magazines.
Because pop magazines are aimed at females, there is often a
theme of pink running through the colour scheme. I have complied
with this convention as my masthead is bright pink

5. Fonts
I used three different fonts in my magazine. I used them mainly on the contents
page because it breaks up the text more. I used one font for the masthead and kept
that font for the masthead on each page. This makes it easier to recognise the
magazine and the font will be associated with the magazine. The font used on the
masthead is very bold and eye catching so it is perfect for a magazine as this was the
desired effect.
I also used another font on the
front cover to separate my cover
lines from my masthead
On my contents page I used two different fonts; one to say what was
inside the magazine, the other to tell the readers a bit more about what
this page would feature. I used a italics to slant the font to separate the
texts further. I chose a font that almost looks hand written so it looks as if
someone has hand written the information underneath the initial text. I
felt this would give the magazine a more personal edge and create a bond
between the reader and the magazine. Top of the Pops magazine also
have this sort of font, so I have followed this convention. All magazines
have a bold masthead so I have also used this convention.

6. Style of Photography
For my front cover photo’s I booked the college studio so I could have this as the
background for my photo’s. I did this because all pop magazines I looked at had the
artists posing in a well-lit studio, so I followed this convention to make my magazine
look more realistic and pop-like. It is unusual to see a pop artist having their photo
taken in front of a graffiti covered building, which is why I didn’t do this. I found
with other pop magazines that the artists were posing, the images were not
natural. I looked at magazines which had photographed groups as I had chosen to
use a group and found that the pictures often make the band look very close by
sitting them close together or making them all do the same pose, so I used this as
inspiration for my photo’s. I have followed all the conventions in my style of
photography, otherwise my magazine would not have looked like a pop magazine.