Question OneIn what ways does your magazine use/develop/challenge

forms and conventions used of real media products?

Use: {my magazine} {music

magazine}

Masthead: I was influenced to tilt my masthead slightly. I think this is a good thing, not only because the professional magazine is similar, but also because it indicates that the magazine is quite informal. Also, my masthead’s font is quite similar to the one used in ‘We Love Pop’. Also the shortness of the title is something that I used – a quick, easy title (3 words).Circle Shape: I saw the use of a circular shape being used to tell the audience more initially on the front cover, and I also saw how this shape covered part of Jessie J’s body to make the audience focus more on her face rather than her leg. I used this technique on my magazine by placing the circular shape on my models lower stomach and thus causing the audience to notice my models face more. The shape is also helpful as it gave me the opportunity to make Mia’s ‘exclusive’ article important.

Colour: the colour scheme on both my magazine and the existing magazine are similar. We both use the colours yellow and pink. Model: both are models are female, and this is significant as it reflects are target audience as being young girls who aspire to be like these successful celebrity women.

Cover Lines: Both magazines have cover lines that relate to gossip e.g. ‘hot in pop’ has ‘harry styles did what?’ and ‘we love pop’ has ‘Bieber blubs: find out why’.Barcode: Both of the magazines have a barcode that is thin and on its side as opposed to wide and straight. Having our barcodes this way allows us more room to use.

Use:

{my magazine} {music magazine}

Message: I felt that it was imperative for my magazine to look welcoming, and this is because my target audience will be quite young females and they stereotypically like to feel involved and part of a ‘community’ e.g. fandoms for 1D, Katy Perry etc. Therefore, I took inspiration from an existing magazine – ‘We Love Pop’ and incorporated a message box to my readers. Also, at the end of the message, both myself and the existing magazine has changed the font to leave the ‘signature’ look. This makes the note look more genuine as it appears that someone has signed it. In my case, I have ‘signed’ Merry Xmas in this handwritten font.Contents Box: For my contents page, I wanted to make sure that the list of contents did not take up the whole page. To achieve this, I took inspiration from ‘We Love Pop’ and put all of the content information into a compact box. I think this makes my magazine look better and more unique compared to other candidates.

Design: Another element in which I used is the subtle box shape which is placed behind everything else. You can see that with both magazines this box is tilted and pointing upwards towards the right. This is a very small but very effective technique as it makes the magazine look more informal.Fonts: Times New Roman was used in both magazines for the message and contents details.

Stories: I knew that my actual contents had to be realistic and relevant to what young teenage girls would read. To do this accurately, I looked at what the existing magazine had in their contents box and took that as my inspiration for what I have written in my own magazine.

Use:

{my magazine} {music magazine}

Interview: From the existing media product, I knew that my interview had to be placed on one half of the double page spread. I knew that to cross over between pages was not professional.Model: Both the models are female. Also, on each magazine, the right half of the double page spread is filled with a main image of the pop artist. Both images are large and take up a lot o room on the page.Title: When I first began designing my double page spread, I struggled to create a title which looked right. Therefore, I used ‘We Love Pop’ and was inspired by the title of the page being a quote from the interview below. The example of the existing magazine is a clear example of this.

Develop:

{my magazine} {music magazine}

Title: I feel that my title stands out more as it is bigger than the other magazines.Sticker: On the existing magazine, the circular sticker is purple. However, I wanted my sticker to stand out a lot more, and to achieve this I made my circle a bright yellow colour; I think this looks a lot better.Subheadings: Due to the fact that my model is positioned more over to the right side of my front cover, I would have found it difficult to have my cover lines on that side also as it would overlap on her image. Therefore I moved my subheadings/cover lines onto the left side to give my model more significance and independence to the front cover – she is the forefront as to why my audience will buy the magazine as she is the next ‘big artist’.Images: On the existing magazine, the images on the left are structured in a way that resembles a photo booth strip, and this is likely because the images are that of posters. However, my photos are of a tour of the Xmas markets, and therefore I have jumbled them together on the bottom bar strip to make them looked more connected as a collective group of images.

Develop:

Quotes: I felt that the quotes from articles had to be longer and look more official than they do in the existing product. In the professional magazine, the quotes are in bold and coloured, whereas in my magazine they are not, they are written in italic Times New Roman font. I did this because I feel a longer quote will intrigue my readers more.

Contents Box: In the existing product, the contents box section does not have an outline around it, whereas I felt that mine would look a lot better with an outline as the image of my model (Jenny) could rest on it. I think that mine looks more spacious than the other.

{my magazine} {music magazine}

Develop:

{my magazine} {music magazine}

Interview Text: I, similarly to the other magazine, knew that the interviewees questions had to be a different style to the artists answers. However, due to the fact that my double page spread is already heavy in colour, I did not feel that having the interviewees questions in colour would be a wise decision, and therefore I just made the questions normal Times New Roman, and the answers bold and italic Times New Roman.Model’s Pose: In the existing magazine, the artist Cher Lloyd’s pose is shocked and gives the impression that she is known for possibly saying too much. For my magazine, my artist does not have this ‘reputation’ and therefore her pose is different, and more welcoming. She smiles to the camera and has her hands on her hips in a stereotypical pose used by female teenagers. Text above Title: In the existing magazine, above the title it has a pink sticker that says ‘Cover Story’, I saw this and wanted to use the same type of idea (something above the title linking to the front cover) and this gave me the idea of changing it from a sticker to a upward tilted ‘exclusive interview’ text instead.

Challenge:

{music magazine}{my magazine}

Clothing: Due to the fact that my magazine is a special Xmas edition, I knew that the mise-en-scene had to be slightly different to the existing magazines. In the existing magazines, the model (Jessie J) is wearing an exotic dress, which appears quite summery. However, this would not work with my magazine, and therefore I chose that my model should wear a Christmassy jumper that my target audience would be able to find/buy.Background: On the existing magazine, there is a white canvas behind the model. On my product however, I wanted a light blue background colour to make it clear that this is a pop magazine aimed at girls. The colour light blue is pretty and contrasts nicely with my other colours. This is a colour scheme that is consistent throughout my product.

Challenge:

{my magazine} {music magazine}

Frequency of sale: For my magazine, I felt that it should be sold weekly as celebrity gossip is ongoing each day, and therefore to sell it monthly may miss out on a lot of information for my audience. However, the existing magazine says ‘Inside this Month’ indicating that they sell their magazine monthly.Bar Strip Content: Along the bottom of the contents page, both the existing magazine and mine have a bar strip along the bottom. The existing one highlights posters that are available inside the magazine. However, I felt that (due to the fact that I did not have photographs for posters) that a competition would be an efficient replacement. I think that creating a competition makes my magazine unique and also highlights that it is aimed at younger people who watch TV shows like ‘The X Factor’. It also shows the informality of my magazine. Title: In the existing magazine, the title ‘We Love This’ is large and bold, and is also horizontal. For my magazine, I felt that the title should be different. Therefore, I made it look more like a banner as it is curved upwards, and is also not as large as the existing magazines.

Photographs: I do not have a group photograph as my main image on the contents page. I felt like a large image of model Jenny would be more suitable as she is a key part of the front cover, and this links to the two pages nicely. I was aware not to have the larger image as the main model on my front page, and therefore the photograph of Mia is in the bottom left corner instead.

Challenge:

Background: I knew that I wanted to make the split in my double page spread noticeable, and to do this I needed two different background colours (white and light blue). Not only do I think this helps recognise the divide, but it also links my double page spread with the front cover (light blue) and I feel that seeing the link between my whole product is very important. Whereas on the existing magazine, the whole background is white, and I feel that this makes it look quite plain – which, in my opinion, is the opposite of what a pop music magazine should look like.Name: On the existing magazine, the name of the artist is ‘Cher Lloyd’ and this is written in text in the top right hand corner. However, I felt that as a pop magazine aimed at young girls, that it is very important for the magazine to feel personal to them, and therefore I decided to write my artists name as a signature just above the interview. I think this gives my double page spread authenticity and makes it look more informal and ‘pop-like’. Whereas on the existing magazine, the name is just written in bold text and does not feel personal or different at all.Design: On the existing magazine, the right hand side of the double page spread only has an image of the model – there is a lot of space around her. I felt that one of the key signs of a pop magazine is that it looks very busy. Therefore, I added two yellow boxes to fill in the space around my model.

{my magazine} {music magazine}