The document discusses the development of a music magazine cover. It analyzes conventions used in real music magazines and how the author's magazine both follows and challenges some of these conventions. The author discusses photographing a model for the cover shoot and learning skills in Photoshop and InDesign to design the cover. These skills included changing backgrounds, editing lighting, using pull quotes and styling the masthead. The final cover represents an improvement over the author's initial understanding of magazine design conventions.

3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Masthead
The mastheads are big and bold and are
usually situated at the top but behind the
model.
Main Image
It’s conventional for the model to look at the camera for
eye contact. It’s also conventional because you follow
the eyes, go down and then down the shoulder towards
the cover lines.
Main Cover Lines
In this magazine there are
Cover Lines
three models which is unlike It’s conventional to have a
other magazines. It draws barcode with the price
your attention as they’re all placed underneath.
giving you eye contact,
mostly the model in the
middle. You look at the
model in the middle then it
draws you over the model on
the right’s shoulder towards
the main cover line.
The themes I have used are conventional to other magazine. My
masthead was placed behind my artist just like VIBE’s does, shown
above. I have numerous cover lines Like NME and VIBE to show that I
will be talking about other topics as well as my main topic which is my
artist.
It’s conventional for a magazine to have
eyebrows as they tell the audience
what’s in the magazine.

4. NME’s masthead is big bright and bold
whereas mine is a more minimum size.
NME has three models on their front cover
of their magazine, whereas I have one.
This shows that magazines don’t have to
have just one model on their cover but up
to three. Another thing is that NME has
pictures alongside their cover, this also
shows that there is no limit on pictures that
can be inserted in your cover.
My music magazine challenges the conventions
of a magazine as my magazine, shown above
is a r&b magazine, whereas NME shown on the
right deters from being a r&b magazine to rock.
Also my magazine has one artist whereas NME
has three. NME has other pictures alongside the
side of there magazine whereas my magazine
has none.

5. I used ‘Boardwalk’ magazine to help me make
my magazine look interested. Without my
pictures it would look plain, so I placed my
pictures partly on top of each other to make it
look unique.
Looking at my magazine and ‘Boardwalk’
magazine there’s a lot of differences as my colour
scheme is black, red, orange and white. Whereas
‘Boardwalk’s contents page is in white and black.

6. Vibe’s masthead is situated
at the top with a more bold
look, whereas mine is also
at the top but the font size
Cover Lines placed at the
is smaller.
side to show the reader
what will be in the
magazine that they’ll be
reading.
Beyonce’s name
written in bold to show I put a date on my
that she’s the main magazine where
feature. other magazines
don’t have one.
Some magazine usually have eyebrows
but in VIBE’s magazine there was no
eyebrow which is also similar to mines
as mine also has no ‘eyebrows’ but
instead has been placed at the bottom
of the magazine cover.

7. My masthead,
placed behind
my artist.
Cover Lines placed
on the right hand
side of my magazine,
written in large and
different coloured
font to make the
Tips on clothing, other features look
than music.
Barcode on the bottom
right corner is used to
create a sense of
uniqueness and also that
the product could be
bought.
Main cover line to show
the main important
article in my magazine.

8. Over the
By the shoulder shoulder
My model was looking directly at the camera which was conventional
to all music magazines in order to attract their readers. My audience
would look at the models eyes and then follow down to his arm where
text would be situated. My model had his hand out where my main
cover line would be. I thought this out in the photo shoot to see how
my magazine would look if I used this picture.

9. Representations may be in speech and still or moving pictures.
Location:
England America
‘How to make your swag look
immaculate’ I used the slang word
‘Swag’ to show my audience that this
magazine can be readable by
teenagers.

10. • Mostly targeted at 16-24 year olds that
either aspire to be musicians or have passion
for music in this genre. My magazine reflects
on what I’d like to see in a magazine with
my kind of music but also others. My
magazine is targeted at both men and
women because it’s not just focused on
male artists or women artists, it’s focused on
both.

11.  My music magazine would
most likely be sold in:
Corner shops as
their most likely
to sell most
genres of music
magazines like
r&b, rock, hip
hop etc.
Music shops as
their most likely
to sell any type However , when I was researching this I
of music WHSmith as they
sell a wide range went to my local corner shops and
magazines like asked what types of magazine they
country music, of genres of music
magazines. distributed and they said which ever
jazz, heavy magazine was popular. ‘Most likely to
metal etc be R&B as young kids listen to this’.
This image shows the typical view of the youth in
media today, recently this has been enhanced
by the recent London riots. However, my
magazine deters from this view.

12. Bauer media group distributes music
magazines like:
Q is the UK's biggest selling monthly music magazine. The Q
brand developed a worldwide reputation as a trusted
voice of musical authority amongst fans, musicians and the
music industry.
Bauer produced my example of an
existing magazine as they do r&b
magazines too. Cheryl Cole was
featured in Q magazine and she is a
r&b/hip-hop artist.
MOJO is the world's biggest UK music magazine. It
represents a musical archive, providing its audience with
an emotional and independent connection to the music.

13. Mostly targeted at 16-24 year olds that either
aspire to be musicians or have passion for music in
this genre. My magazine reflects on what I’d like to
see in a magazine with my kind of music but also
others.
My magazine is targeted at both men and women
because it’s not just focused on male artists or
women artists, it’s focused on both. The social
class is directed to all social classes, anyone who
listens to R&B would like what I’ve written in my
magazine.

14. I selected the photos that looked more
appealing to my audience. Appealing
because he was posed in a way to draw
the readers in.
The specific techniques I used were
slang words as my audience could
relate to them. For example ‘How To
Make Your ‘SWAG’ look immaculate.
This meaning ‘How to make your The way he holds the microphone could be
looks (clothing) look on point or significant in the way other unidentified musicians
great. holds theirs.

15. What do you think of my magazine?
1. I think your magazine looks great. I love how the colours
go together. The way the artist is placed, his posture and
pose looks amazing, it really does look like a music
magazine.
2. It looks okay but there could be some changes. The artist
looks a bit blurry but in other cases it look good.
Do you think it represents how you see yourself as a
teenager?
1. Yes as your artist looks around 17/18 years old. However
most teenagers wear hoodies and caps. This artist does
not which shows a contrast of how different teenagers
can be.
2. No, teenagers these days don’t dress like that. If he wore
a hoodie then it would represent a teenager.
Do you think it looks entertaining enough for you to buy a
copy?
1. Yeah it really does. In your article it includes Drake and his
new album and I absolutely love Drake.
2. Yeah, I can see myself reading this magazine. I listen to
Chris Brown and Rihanna and I wouldn’t mind reading
what they think. Also your artist looks like he’s got a
passion for singing so I’d read his interview.

16. What Ranges of
technologies were What hardware and
Wordpress Word
available? what software were
available?
InDesign and Google
Camera
Photoshop
What hardware and what software is
available? Computers
I used Photoshop to crop my pictures and to
also change the lighting when the picture
I had to book a computer in order for me to use the was too dark. For example, I cropped these
software, also I used the software's when I had my photos:
media lessons. But I could use my mobile phone to
access Wordpress when trying to complete unfinished
work.
How difficult/easy are they to use?
It Was difficult using Photoshop and InDesign because I
had never used it before. I had to ask for help many
times until I could successfully use it and also help
others. Wordpress was complicated at first as I did not
know where to upload my work, making a page
instead of a post.

17. I used Photoshop to crop my pictures
and to also change the lighting
when the picture was too dark. For
example, I cropped these photos:
 I Used Photoshop to import my touched
up pictures into InDesign.
 I Also used Photoshop to crop, lighten and
change certain aspects of my picture.
The picture on the left has a black
background, I used Photoshop to
edit the picture, having a white
background. Before using
Photoshop, I would not have
known how to use it almost
professionally.

18. Masthead
Pull Quote
The title of a Terminology:
newspaper or
magazine at the head
of the front or editorial A pull quote is a
page. quotation from an
Standfirst article in a magazine
that is placed in a larger
font size
Explanatory text under the
Before media, I thought main heading of a
that the magazine magazine, smaller than the
name was just called a heading but still larger than I learnt how to seek out decent
title, but now I’ve learnt the main text information in order for it to be a
that it’s called a pull quote. (A decent sentence)
masthead.
I learnt how to identify what the
difference between a standfirst
and a heading is.

19. Looking back at my preliminary exercise and my front cover for
my music magazine, you can see that there is a big difference. In
my preliminary I didn’t change my background, the background
was kept the same. Whereas my music magazine’s cover was
changed. I learnt how to change the background and touch up
the models tone and the lighting of the picture. I learnt about pull
quotes and standfirsts, things I did not know beforehand. I learnt
how to put my masthead behind my model in order to create a
better effect. However in my preliminary task, my masthead was
better than my final magazine covers masthead is it was bold
and was varying from the colours black and yellow.

20. Photo Shoot
I had to know how to make my font, text
and colour look similar to other music
magazines but unique enough to make it
 I had to plan photo shoots with my artist my own.
in order to start my music magazine. I
had to know how to place my model,
looking at other models posture and
poses. I had to figure out how my model
will look like in order to attract my
audiences.
I used big and bold writing to show
that this is the main feature in my
magazine. The font size was above
30 balancing on my artists hands to
show how important ‘Jai Scarlet’s’
interview is.