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

media products? (i.e. of music magazines)

The masthead of my magazine is spread across the top

band of the cover, similar to Clash and Billboard magazine
and I have made INTERVAL mostly white, again similar to Clash magazine. The font used for my
masthead is NAME and is clear and professional looking. The word interval alone has
connotations with music and performing so fits well with the genre of magazine. After my first
draft, I found it more fitting for the masthead to be horizontal rather than vertical on the page so
that the name of the magazine was clear and would stand out. I decided against the popular
magazine convention to have the masthead behind the model because of my models very curly
hair. After some consideration, it was more appropriate to have the masthead slightly over the
models hair so that none of the magazines name was lost and it was able to stand out and be
identifiable as a masthead.
With regards to other graphology, I chose my magazine to develop classic
magazine conventions. My cover for example included a circle with
competition information in it which is a feature found on the Q Adele cover
except instead of competition details it displays The 300th issue. My
magazine is set out with the outer two thirds containing the text and the
middle third containing the photo (much like the Clash magazine layout
above) so that the cover page has an easy to follow layout and looks very similar to a professional
magazine. The layout for my contents page consists of roughly 2/3 writing and 1/3 pictures which
gives a good amount of information as well as being pleasing to the eye. The layout of my double
page spread consists of four columns of writing, a column of photos and a group photo at the
bottom of the recto to spread out the different types of graphology and not make the pages too
busy. I felt it necessary to include quite a lot of information down the sides on my cover as after
looking at similar magazines in my chosen genre, that text convention was very popular. Throughout
my article, I included pull quotes, a quote from the artist which is enlarged, within the body of the
text to bring attention to their speech and to help break up the text so that it is easier to read. Due
to the models position, it was appropriate to put text on either side of his face and torso was framed
centrally, thus the need to fill the blank space. Also, my magazine was based around a genre (Indie
Pop/ Electronica) that focused on new and
upcoming talent, so larger bands didnt demand
more cover space to gain attention from readers
(for example Q and Billboard above have less

writing because the attention is drawn away from the Alist celebrity on the cover). I had noticed
that a lot of magazines had small rectangular divides between the text, so I developed that
convention and created different sizes and placements for my own dividers.
Props and costume used in my photographs are there to reflect the
artist character. I decided to include a mug as one of my mise en
scene props because of this inspiration from Adele and Sam Smith.
Because the artist on my contents page isn't my main focus, I felt
like I could create a character for her. I decided to have her sitting
down in an interview chair with a hot drink to link with the topic of
her 'opening up' about her lyrics. I thought that basing her off of
quintessentially British musicians, such as Adele and Sam Smith, she
could add some variety to my magazine and contribute a chilled vibe
to the Indie Pop genre. This could then contrast against the image of Domino to show how
vast the variety of artists are in the genre and I was also able to incorporate unusual mise en
scene, while still linking the image to a sit down interview. I posed Louis from the feature
band Candid to have his arm against his body to make the image more interesting and make
the character seem unusual. My models were styled in quite basic clothing but had features
about them which stood out (for example Louis hair) and I feel that this reflected the
rawness of the band and the fact that theyre not boasting about huge amounts of money
with their clothing. With regards to the types of models used, I wanted to vary the types of
people I featured by using people with different complexions and hair colours/styles so that
my magazine covered most social groups of people and therefore seem
relatable.
I kept to a concise colour scheme for my magazine with monotone colours and a
burgundy colour taken from the models bandana to keep the colours all tied
together. I found that burgundy worked well with black and white and I
developed this from magazines (such as NME shown above) using one main
colour to work with black and white. I originally wanted to go for that sort of
colour scheme and my survey from the research and planning section backed
that decision; from there it was a case of finding a way to incorporate it into the magazine.
After looking into some photoshoots of famous musicians, I decided to develop the intimate images
and include close up headshots on my double page spread. This however caused me to knuckle
down with my Photoshop editing as my original model on the group photo was in hospital with a
fractured spine, so the female band member had to be changed in order to be able to
include the close ups, thus me editing the new model onto the group photo instead of
going through the trouble of recreating the image. Most cover page images are either
close ups or mid-shots, so I decided to use the idea of a mid-shot and photograph my
model 0in that way. The contents page images are where the varied shots come in
because after researching contents page images, that was where most of the different
images were, so it was fitting to be more experimental with shots on that page.
I used a variation of fonts; my main ones being: Bebas and Gill Sans MT because I felt like these fonts
were clear and are similar to real magazine fonts, therefore I was able to develop the original

conventions into my own. The language register used in my article is slightly personal and
informative which is my personal preference when reading articles, which was discovered through
research. I also noticed that a lot of magazines had competitions and writing in italics, so I developed
this particular convention to my magazine especially on the cover and contents page.