In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?A magazine is made up of certain elements, here are a few of the main points which make up a magazine:

• Page numbers• Masthead• Fonts• Colour scheme• Style of photography• Writing style• Pull quotes• Cover lines• Barcode

All magazines feature these factors, but their layout and style in which they choose to use for their magazine expresses the genre of the magazine and appeals to their target audience.

Mastheads

My own magazine I created, Chart Life

With my research on the other magazines I have looked at I was able to compare the font and colour scheme of the mastheads, helping me to make the same choices when creating my own masthead. I have also looked at the way in which the magazines have chosen whether to layer the cover photo over or under the masthead, Top of the Pops being the only magazine not to layer over the masthead, I followed the most common, used by both Smash Hits and Billboard by choosing to layer the cover photo over the top of the masthead.

Fonts

When choosing the fonts for my magazine I have looked at the fonts used in existing magazines aimed towards the same genre as my own, I have used for my double page spread a plain simple, easy to read font and as my double page spread was an interview I have used bold text for the questions of the interview and plain text for the answers, to make the text easier to read. I have used pull quotes within my text as well, in the centre of chunks of text and have used a different bold font with a drop shadow and a different colour in a similar style to the other magazines I had looked at in a way in which the pull quote stands out from the rest of the text and is much more attention grabbing.

My font used within my magazine

Colour Scheme

When choosing the colour scheme for my magazine I looked at the colour schemes as used for other existing pop music magazines, and noticed how the colours red and pink were the most used colours, the colours used also fit the mood of the music being lively and vibrant and also are very attention grabbing colours which make the magazines stand out from the rest and the colours used are aimed towards the correct demographic of consumers with the young age range, mostly female audience.

My own magazine and the colour scheme I have used.

Style of Photography

When considering how I wanted my photograph to be like for my front cover, I wanted a very feminine, well made-up cover star with a striking punchy colour to stand out on the cover, in which I photoshopped the image to airbrush the image and change the stars hair colour to a vibrant red to stand out on the front cover. The pose on the front cover is also well suited to the cover with her pose and having space to fit the text around the image in the same way in which other popular pop music magazines have done. I also have used a photography in which the star is looking at the camera, to create a relationship with the audience.

My front cover main photograph.

Writing Style

When looking at existing magazines of the pop music genre they use a large amount of words that fit in with thegenre, words such ‘Exclusive’, ‘Queen of Pop’ which I have incorporated into my cover line of my magazine. But within my interview and after looking at other interviews within this genre of magazine the questions asked are very informal and chatty with questions in Top Of The Pops saying ‘What’s been your fave outfit?’ the word ‘fave’ instead of favourite has a very chatty informal approach of interviewing a celebrity, I have tried to make my question asking very informal also by the interviewer giving their responses to the answers from the celebrity to give a chatty approach to the interview.

My writing style within my magazine.

Pull Quotes

When looking through my interview answers I took the most attention grabbing eye catching quote from the interview and the quote is also very similar to that used in Top Of The Pops magazine with “I’m so scared of the dark” and “I was very scared of the fame”, both being very attention grabbing quotes, the use of the bold writing and drop shadows makes the pull quotes stand out from the rest of the text making it much easier and much more noticeable, among the rest of the interview.

My pull quote in which I used in my magazine.

Cover Lines

When writing a cover line for my magazine, I took in consideration the cover lines of existing products, and used a rhetorical question as used in a large amount of cover lines of magazines of the pop genre and I also used words which fit with the genre by using the words ‘teen queen’ and ‘world domination’ referring to a large scale audience and also the rhyming of ‘teen queen’ has a ring to it which will appeal to a much younger age range which is the correct demographic for my audience and therefore fits perfectly.

The cover line which I chose to use in my own magazine.

Page Numbers & Barcodes

When looking at existing magazines they all feature a barcode on the front cover, some having the price with the barcode; some having the issue number and date near the barcode. I decided to place a barcode on its own at the bottom of the magazine and the other information such as the price and date and issue number directly underneath the masthead to make it easier to see. I have also involved page numbers into my magazine, another essential piece of a magazine and have noted the website address for the magazine next to the number in a similar way to the page number of Smash Hits with the magazine title name featured next to every page number.

My magazine’s page number with a featured website

address for the magazine.

My barcode from my magazine, I had placed the

issue number and cost under the masthead of the

magazine.