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

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

To create the final finished product of my magazine I feel that I have followed most, if not all magazine conventions. To start off with my masthead, after doing lots of research into other magazine front covers, has been placed behind the central image something that I found almost all magazines do. It makes my magazine look more realistic. The font of my masthead is a large, bold font in capital letters. My inspiration for my masthead came from magazines such as GQ and Q magazine. 

These are the mastheads from magazines that were my inspiration:

Most of the images for my magazine were taken in a photography studio, somewhere were a lot of magazine shoots are taken. This gives the images a professional look and allows for easy editing, something that is important and used a lot on magazine pictures. Seeing as my magazines other focus apart from music was fashion this is something the images had to include so that my consumers could relate and be inspired by certain images within the magazine. Vogue, GQ and Q magazines were the main influenced that I based my photography for my magazine on. The front cover image is a mid-shot of my friend Zoë. This mid close up shot allows for her to stay the main focus but also show off her clothes and makeup. A white background was used so that the cover lines would stand out more and be easy to read. My double page spread image is a close up of Zoë using a mask to add extra detail and create a more different and interesting eye catching image. I chose a close up shot for the double page spread so that the main focus is the models eyes, I wanted the consumers to make a connection with the model. All the images were airbrushed in Photoshop to create the perfect image for a magazine. This is something always used on magazine photography.

Here are some example of how magazines manipulate and airbrush models to look 'magazine perfect':

The genre for my magazine was pop and R&B so the clothes worn by the cover artist were a tight dress something that most female artists in other magazines are put in to create sex appeal and lust. My magazines main feature was a solo artist this is something that after doing audience research I found that people prefer to read about solo artist. My target age range for my magazine is 15-20 so all the articles and people featured in the magazine will be an interest to my consumers.

Here are some of the stories featured in my magazine. They all inculde artists which according to my reaseach are my readers favorite, this is so my readers will find the magazine interesting.








Most of my fonts throughout my front cover, contents page and double page spread are all the same so to make the pages link and flow with one another. The font was just chosen from InDesign, it is what I would call a unisex font but not to funky but not boring either. I also made sure that it was easy to read. The language throughout my magazine is normal, I haven’t used colloquial or bad language as my target audience are quite sophisticated and normal people. I feel this will make my magazine easier to read. By using this kind of language my audience will find it easier to relate to certain things in the magazine.

Font Choice

(Minion Pro)

All of the pages in my magazine follow conventional layouts for example my front cover has a central image which is a mid-shot to close up of a model. It has a large masthead which has been placed behind the central image. Like all magazines it has a bar code, price, and date and issue number. The layout of the cover lines are placed around the central image all following magazine conventions. My contents page layout again follows magazine conventions it has each story clearly laid out with page numbers and headings, some visual aids for certain articles and twitter and Facebook links, an important part of today’s magazines. Lastly the layout for my double page spread has used magazine conventions by using a large image on one side including a quote from within the article. The writing is set out in paragraphs including a bold title and a ‘follow on to next page’ triangle. By following magazine conventions for each of my pages it means I have created a more professional and realistic magazine.