The document summarizes how the student used conventions from existing pop magazines in designing their own magazine. They analyzed magazines like "Top of the Pops" and "We <3 Pop" to identify common features such as eye-catching mastheads, cover lines, pull quotes, and full-page celebrity images. Their designs incorporated these conventions through elements like bright colors, separated content sections, and Q&A style articles. While adhering to typical pop magazine styles, the student made one small challenge by using more neutral model photography rather than brightly dressed images. Overall, the conventions were largely followed as they are effective for popular magazines.

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

2. When I started to create my
magazine I needed to look at
already made pop
magazines to see their
typical conventions and how
they use them.
I noticed that a lot of them had similar features
appearing on them and this is what made them
look professional and therefore be successful!

3. My two main inspirations whilst designing
and creating mine were ‘top of the pops’
and ‘we <3 pop’.
I focused my attention of these two as these are the
two big popular pop magazines. However, I did also
look into other magazines to see if they had similar
conventions. I quickly noticed that a lot of them did
follow a similar pattern.

4. Here are a few random examples of some
magazines that I looked at. Although they
aren’t music magazines, it was interesting
to see that they had a similar style.

5. The main image is
The mast
another feature that
head is one
needs to stand out as
of the main
many readers may have
items that
brought the magazine
stands out
because of the person
the most. It
feature on the front.
usually needs
Furthermore, the person
to be eye
on the front also usually
catching and
has a double page
clear.
spread somewhere in the
magazine.
The main
cover-line is As the magazine
another is typically aimed
feature that I at girls they
found stood usually have some
out in a lot of sort of beauty
magazines. feature on the
front cover.
Pull quotes are used so try and interest the reader into
buying the magazine.

6. Top of the pops also
include similar
conventions such as a
clear masthead that
stands out, the left third in
which it includes what will
be in the magazines, pull
quotes to try and interest
the reader, the cover line
being another convention
that stands out and finally
the main image covering a
lot of room and being
someone well known that
will most likely feature
later on in the magazine.

7. Contents pages don’t follow the same
conventions and often vary more from other
magazines. However, looking at the one of the
left, it still includes various pictures, bright
colours and clear labelling.
Once again, many double page spreads
vary. It is still colourful and there isn’t lots
of writing which would fit in well with the
target audience being so young. I found
they used a main image, a quote for the
title, they didn’t use a drop capital,
included a page number and used a pull
quote.

8. This is my final front cover. As you can see it
still continues to follow many conventions
typically used by pop magazines.
The masthead and the cover line are the
two pieces of text to stand out the most and
although there is more text featured, it isn’t
as clear and bold as the masthead and
cover line.
It includes tag-lines that will be included in
the magazine to try and persuade the
person to buy the magazine.
It has the feature about fashion as my
magazine is aimed at girls around 11-16 so
this is stereotypically what they would be
interested in.
My model is standing in a more interesting
It follows a bright colour scheme which way rather than just stood there, however,
is something that is also seen as it is aimed at young girls is cannot be
throughout other pop magazine and the anything to revealing.
colours are feminine as this once again
refers back to the target audience.

9. This is my final contents page and once again it
follows many conventions of a contents page.
The colour scheme needed to fit with the front
page so this was one thing I needed to do.
It’s bright but not overwhelming which was
something that was found in other pop contents
pages.
It has several pictures on it to try and interest
the reader.
The sectioning of it is similar to other contents
pages. I’ve split it up into shopping, gossip,
quizzes and prizes. I done this because it is
what I felt a lot of magazines tried to aim for as
it was something that would interest their
readers.

10. For my final double page
spread I wanted to do it in the
style of a question and
answer. I done this because I
felt it was what would interest
the reader more and also
when I looked through other
pop magazines, they tended
to go with this style also.
I used a quote for my main title as this
would hopefully want the reader to
continue to read.
I tried to use bright colours but didn’t want to overwhelm them and distract the reader from the actual content of
the double page spread.
I took another pull quote and placed it half way through. This was another convention that many magazines in
general used.
I had a main image. It varied where magazine placed them. They were often found on either side of the page or
some times spread across both. I decided to put mine of the right as I felt this worked best with my double page.
In a lot of magazines, they often use a drop capital, however, when I looked at various other pop magazines they
didn’t include it. I think this is because they never have much of an introduction on the artist because they are
usually so well known that they don’t need to. Also because they have such a young readership that they can’t
include too much information as this would put the readers off.

11. Overall, I felt that I did use and develop conventions more than
challenge them as pop magazines are extremely popular and
obviously what they are doing is working. One thing I did
challenge was that their models are usually dressed in bright
colours and I didn’t want to use this too much as it was the one
thing that I felt could be neutral and therefore could possibly
interest both boys and girls. Just because it is generally a girl
magazine doesn’t mean that boys won’t have an interest in the
person on the main image. I also didn’t want to dress them
brightly as I felt it would be too much for the eye to have bright
colours for the text etc as well as for the model.
The way pop magazine conventions are used is effective and
clearly works for them so I didn’t see a real need to change them.
However, obviously it needs changing to some effect otherwise I
would just be making an exact replicate of another magazine.