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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.