1. Forms and conventions of real media products, That my magazine uses, develops and challenges…

2. Masthead. My magazine, like every other, has a Masthead at the top of the page with a large eye-catching appearance. In my research, where I studied actual magazines of a similar genre to mine, I realised they all had a large Masthead at the top of the page. Therefore this is an example of me using a very standard convention in magazine layout. Most successful magazines have the Masthead slightly covered by the model, like the “VIBE” magazine above with 50 Cent. I chose not to cover my masthead with my model, even though I did consider it and even tried it out, but eventually chose not to. This could be seen as me challenging conventions of an actual media product.

3. Use of House style… I kept a house style of colours within my magazines pages just like an actual magazine… I used the same colour theme throughout. I used the same green, red and yellow. I easily did this by paying attention to the CMYK colour code.

4. Fonts and page layout… I downloaded a font that I thought suited the theme of my magazine. The font I chose was “Graffiere”, and I believed it connoted street and urban lifestyle. I think it matched the rough, “against the rules” theme of my magazine. I used Quark Express to stick to a strict layout within my contents page and double page spread, even though it appears fairly messy. I kept my page design in straight columns, and all of my pages were covered in guides and borders to keep my work strictly similar to actual magazines on the market. To make my magazine more “against the rules” as mentioned previously, I had some words and images breaking the borders and guidelines such as in actual magazines I studied. “Kerrang”, “Vibe” etc.

5. A variety of model designs… I took a variety of photographs of my models, mostly in mid close up, as I planned in my research and planning. Most real magazines use a mid close up model on the front cover, and the model is usually staring directly at the reader. In my magazine I also used a mid-close up model, but unlike actual magazines, after some experimenting I chose not to have my mid-close up model staring directly at the reader, but looking away into the distance, as if he was staring at another person in the street. I did this so it stuck to the street genre of my magazine, and connoted a small amount of aggressive behaviour. I used Adobe Photoshop to alter the appearance of the models within my photography, I will discuss the use of such technology further ahead in this blog.

6. End Of Slideshow… Further Information in blog entry…