This document discusses how the student's music magazine product uses and is inspired by conventions from the real magazine Spin. Specifically: - The cover design is inspired by Spin covers, taking elements like the red backdrop, block font, and listing of featured artists. - The contents page similarly features a strong central image and lists pages and contents, drawing from Spin's design. - A double page feature story takes elements from a Spin spread like column text, a focal image of the artist, and pull quotes, while differentiating the design with its own color scheme and two images of the artist. Overall the student draws key conventions from Spin like the use of images and consistent design elements, while adapting the work

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

2. Inspiration
As soon as I became aware that I’d be
creating a music magazine I knew that I
had a specific brand in mind. Spin
magazine is a product I have respected
and read for a while, as I enjoy the artists
and articles they publish. I am also a fan
of their design work, therefore I used the
company as my main inspiration.

3. Spin Magazine
Cover this cover prompted me to
Firstly,
build the foundation of my front cover
due to it’s unconventional nature. It
lacks obvious cover lines and displays
many artists rather than
one, furthermore I liked the urban
nature of the product. I focused on
the header as inspiration for
mine, deriving the continuous
conventions of using a red backdrop
and a block font throughout many
magazines, i.e NME. Similarly I used
the text under the header as a basis
to list other artists that’d be featuring
in my magazines. I used a very similar
style for my cover as it worked with
the overall image I was trying to
portray to gather my target audiences
interest. The main cover line ‘The
Changing Face of Hip-Hop’ is a relay
between the image and the text as it

4. Another Spin Magazine Cover
This front cover is where I found
inspiration for my main image.
Amy Winehouse was an iconic
female figure in the music
industry and the placement she
has on this cover is major and
dominating. The expression on
her face and her
clothing/tattoos/hairstyle are all
iconic to her image, therefore for
my image I specifically dressed
my model in slightly provocative
clothing with cat ears, to brand
and emphasise her name as an
artist, ‘Vixen’. Again on this cover
we see the recurring red theme
with plenty of cover lines. I used
this image to construct my own
cover lines and gather ideas
combined with the previous

5. Spin Contents Page
For my contents page I carried my
theme through using the same artist in
different clothes, with a different
photographic effect and keeping the
focus on her. Here is a Spin contents side
by side with mine. Although both
contents differ in colour and layout, I
took the main conventions of listing
pages and contents with a strong
image, just like the Spin design.

6. Double Page Spread
For my double page spread I researched previous designs from Spin
magazine, looking in particular for a feature on a female artist. I found
an image and began to draw design features from it to apply to mine.
This includes the column text structure, the powerful focal image of the
artist and pull out quotes. I began to build up my design with these
starter points, customising the page to suit my colour theme of red and
white. Furthermore I decided rather than making my double page
spread in exactly the same format as my contents and front cover, I
would continue the use of the font Princetown for ‘Vixen’ and incorporate
white and red amongst the text, this also corresponded with the lip
colour of my artist. I decided using a black backdrop would alter my
design work against my other two pieces and make it more realistic, as
in many magazines it appears the double page spread is normally
created to suit the artist whilst incorporating some features from the
magazine brand itself. Therefore my work on this image differentiates
itself from the rest of the magazine. I also used two images rather than
one to portray different aspects of ‘Vixen’ and create a more
aesthetically engaging product.