The document discusses various design elements of a magazine cover and spread, comparing them to real magazines. It focuses on mastheads, sell lines, images, and article layout. The creator took inspiration from popular magazines to design professional-looking elements and used techniques like varied fonts and placement of images and text to keep pages visually interesting. Overall, the creator aimed to replicate the look and feel of real magazines.

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

2. Cover – Mast Head.
I took the idea for my style of mast head from each of these magazines. I
wanted my mast head to look professional like other magazines and that is
why I took two very popular, recognizable magazine mast heads and turned
them into a different but equally eye catching magazine mast head. I used the
stroke tool on Photoshop to give it that edge and used a minimal colour
scheme of red and black to make my mast head stand out. I think that this was
the right thing to do because my mast head is not hard to look at like some
other magazine mast heads simply because of their use of multiple
colours, and my magazine logo is still very bold and catches the eye very
easily.

3. Cover – Main Sell Line.
For my main sell line, because I was
comparing my magazine to a professional one
while making it I wanted the artists name to be
the main focus on the page like the magazine
with the Adele article for the main sell line. I
achieved this by downloading a font the would
stand out on top of my background which was
a photograph of the artist. I downloaded the
font from ‘Dafont.com’ and I chose to include
some text above the artists name like the
professional one saying ‘The Iconic Voice.’ I
believe that this makes the reader want to
read it because of the word ‘iconic.’ This
makes it sound like the artist is special and no
one else sounds like him.

4. Cover – Sell Lines.
On my cover, I used three sell lines, each
with a different font to make them stand out
in their own way. I chose to use the colours
red and black, not only because they are
the colours included in my mast head but
because when comparing my magazine to
a professional one, I found that red and
black, when used together are very
powerful and stand out a great deal.
However, unlike the professional
magazine, I used various texts but I think
this works well due to the fact that each
stand out.

5. Cover – Puff and Sky Line.
For my puff and sky line, I used two professional magazines to
understand how to make each of them stand out but easy to look at and
read. In the end I went for a black background and white text because I
know that black and white would be the two colours that are most likely to
catch the readers eye. I considered using other colours but I didn’t think
they had the same impact so I reverted back to the black and white colour
palette.

6. Cover – Main Image.
Like other magazines, my main image
was made to catch the readers eye. I
used a simple image and cut it out in
Photoshop. I also changed the
brightness and contrast of the image
so that like other professional
magazines, it would stand out against
the plain, sometimes coloured
background. I think my main image
looks professional against other
magazines because of the way I shot
the image in a medium close up
way, just like a professional magazine
would.

7. Contents – Title.
Comparing my contents page title to those
of professional magazines, i think that
mine goes well with the theme of my
magazine and looks good and catches the
readers eye. Compared to other music
magazine contents page titles, I think mine
stands out more and looks better on the
page. I made the magazine title bigger and
bolder than the word contents because i
want the magazine title to be the word
stuck in the readers head to hopefully get
them to buy it again.

8. Contents – Headings.
In my contents page, I only used three
headings. This is because I did not want
to over complicate the page for the reader
when they are looking at it. In some ways
I think this worked well because it makes
the page simple and easy to
read, although, I also feel that it could
make my magazine look a little bit
unprofessional as in other magazines lots
if sections are used that may not carry as
much text but include more headings to fill
space and look professional.

9. Contents – Music Chart.
I chose to include a music chart because I was
looking at a professional magazine called
‘Billboard’ and i saw that they had included one.
I felt that this was a very good idea because it
would keep readers interested in the magazine
as it has something different that only one other
magazine has. I also included it because i
believe that it could get readers to download a
track that may be number one that week that
they may not necessarily know or usually
download. This would boost sales of both the
magazine and the track listed.

10. Contents – Full Page.
To fully compare my contents page to
that of a professional one, I have added
a picture of the full finished product
along side a professional one. I have
found that my magazine does look
professional apart from the text
size, which seems quite a bit larger than
a professional magazine and my
magazine also looks a little bare in
some places so if I was to do it again I
would perhaps include more images
and present my text closer together to
save room and have more space
available for the images on and around
the page.

11. DPS – Quotes.
In my DPS, I used highlighted quotes
from the actual article. I did this
because it is very popular in
professional magazines and I thought it
would help my magazine look
professional like the other. This worked
well, although if I was to do it again I
would make my quotes bigger with a
different font to make them stand out a
bit more.

12. DPS – Images.
Like professional magazines, I chose
to take up a full page with an image.
This makes my magazine look
professional as a range of other
magazines use this technique also, to
take up space and to make the page
look fuller. I also chose to put some
images lining the bottom of the page. I
wanted to do this because I saw it in a
professional magazine and thought it
added some style to the page rather
than just having one or two images on
the page in a random way. I did them
various sizes to fit around the text and
also so the page didn’t look boring
with them all being one size.

13. DPS – Article.
I used four columns because I wanted my DPS to be full and contain a lot of
information about the artist I was interviewing. Most magazines only use three
columns or less so I thought that because I was using four, my magazine may
not look as professional. However, the way I laid the text out made my
magazine look better than I originally thought because of the way I had put
three columns on one page and a small column on the other page. Because I
used questions for my article, I think that this made it better because it was
easier for the reader to go through and it has a more relaxed feel to overall
article.

14. DPS – Title.
I chose to include a ‘buzzword’ for my title because I
think that this catches the readers eye when flicking
through the magazine. As soon as the reader sees the
word ‘exclusive’ it makes them want to look at the
article and read it for the ‘buzzword’ at the top of it.