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

The magazine that I mainly looked to for inspiration was Billboard. I didn’t include all of their conventions as I didn’t want to replicate it but rather make it my own. The Rihanna issue is the one I was taking notes on, I wanted to both challenge and conform their conventions when creating my own magazine.  

While my main focus was on Billboard magazine, I also wanted to compare my own to another (Q) to see whether their conventions  are similar/different from not just mine, but one another.

1. The Title of The Magazine : My masthead is in roughly the same position as Billboard's is. I noticed that other magazines such as Q and NME have their masthead on the left hand side, however, I had to challenge that convention because the title of my magazine is longer than Q or NME and it therefore did not look right when put on the left hand side. I therefore opted for the center as it is a lot easier on the eye and takes up a bit of space at the top.

2. The Date: Normally the date of a magazine is within the barcode or below the title on the right hand   side, but I decided to challenge  this convention because it made it look different from other magazines. (However, I also put the date in the barcode too just in case the reader does not think to look in the title.)

3. 'Puffs': The ‘puff’ font is different to the masthead to let the reader know the difference. Just like the Billboard cover, it is in line with the title of the magazine to make it look neat and organised, which is essential because it lets the reader know that the magazine is worthy of its price.

4.  Barcodes: In general, the barcode features the price, the website and the date. I have followed the same convention, however, I have not put the prices of other countries that are outside of the UK because I would like to start off with the magazine being small because if it goes worldwide straight away, there is a slight chance of losing profit and its quite risky because not everyone will like it at first nor will they have heard of it.

5.   Advert:  I added an advert on the front cover because since in theory, it would be a new magazine,  I would need to make it appeal to my audience and through competitions, it is a likely form of people wanting to buy magazines. Also, young adults in general are interested in 'freebies' and therefore I am appealing to my target audience.

However, what I noticed is that music magazines rarely have adverts on the front cover and therefore by adding one, it is in risk of looking 'trashy' or more of a tabloid.

Kerrang! magazine does use adverts, however, its just to promote the posters in the magazine while I'm promoting a competition.

6.   Image: The image that I used is a mid shot. Its it roughly the same position as the one of Rihanna on Billboard. Music magazines normally do either a close mid shot (such as the one with Adele on Q) or a mid shot (like Rihanna on Billboard). I decided to use the latter convention because I think its effective to see  their face and body  because the audience can tell a lot about what kind of person they are, or even what genre of music they fit into. Also, depending on the body language, it would either invite the audience in or exclude them. In this case, unlike the Rihanna one, my model is fully dressed and appears more happy and inviting than Rihanna's facial expression. I believe that if the contents of the magazine is good, you do not need revealing pictures to promote it. However, a slight issue with this image is that its not connoting a music genre, if I was to take away the cover lines and masthead, I doubt readers would guess that it is a music magazine because she’s not holding anything music related. Also, the fact that she is not 'known' would make it harder to realize that she is in the music industry, however, with someone like Beyonce, it is clear where the magazine is heading.

7. Image #2: Originally, I planned to have the background colour to be plain white, however, when I experimented with that, it looked very dull so with the soft pink on the right, it brings more colour and ‘life' to the magazine. I used the 3 colour rule of black, white and pink (as seen below) to make sure that I didn’t  overdo it and that it remained easy on the eye. 

8.  Feature Article 'Puff':  I  used a different colour of font for this to make it stand out from the other puffs and make it clear that it is the feature article. Magazines use different ways to show that that particular puff is linked with the feature article and I decided to keep it simple by just changing the font.

9.  The Website: I put the website of the magazine at the top because I again wanted to challenge that convention as the website is normally in the barcode (although that's where I have placed it as well just in case the reader doesn't look there).