Question One:In what ways does your

media product use, develop or challenge forms

and conventions of real media products?

In the process of designing and making my magazine, I have tried to develop similar features which are currently on magazines which have a similar style to my own.When designing my magazine I have taken into consideration and have been inspired by the fonts, colours and the structure used by other magazines and images.

My first inspiration for the Music Magazine came from this “Billboard Magazine”. I chose this cover as it is a similar magazine to the one that I would like to produce myself.

The magazine uses similar artists in the magazine that would feature in my own product, which is a reason why I was inspired by this magazine.However, overall even though I was inspired by this magazine cover, the adaptation and development of it for my own magazine wasn’t able to work.

As the cover image for my magazine is very different to the Billboard cover image, I found it difficult to place and create the masthead on the cover.

It was difficult to place the masthead so it was in line with the cover image which is a necessary criteria.The model in the Billboard cover image has there head straight and has a moody pose in place. Whereas my own model has her head on an angle and is tilting her head back and is smiling. This is creating a different atmosphere and mood, compared to the magazine that originally inspired me.

Even though it didn’t inspire me overall for the design and layout of the cover. This Beyoncé cover has inspired me in the editing process of the photographs to the right.To improve the design of the magazine I horizontally flipped the pictures, this was to let the writing , like the text on the Billboard cover, be on the models hair so the text stood out.

I also enlarged the picture and made went into a close up shot, as this was to make the reader feel more connected with the audience.

As I felt that the Beyoncé Billboard cover didn’t fit the type of image that I wanted to portray to the reader, and didn’t meet the criteria’s I was looking for, I changed my inspiration cover.

I changed my inspiration cover to the Adele Vogue cover, which is shown to the left. This was because I felt that the Vogue cover looks sophisticated and classy, all the things I wanted to portray to my reader as well.

I have used a similar layout to the Vogue cover, however I have not used similar colours. In the text of my magazine I have developed the idea of the main features being in a bolder colour compared to the rest of the text.

Like other magazine’s I have placed the masthead at the top of the magazine cover, as when it’s view on a shelf it will be the first thing a consumer will see. As it would be the first thing a consumer will see it needed to be bold and stand out so it will attract the reader.

I was unable to find a magazine cover which had the cover model looking away from the camera, so this was one of the reasons I had chosen this image to be on the cover.

I have not put a price on the front of the magazine, as I have chosen to place the price and the barcode on the back of the magazine, as this improves the structure and presentation of the magazine. This is an idea that the Vogue magazine cover has also done.

When designing my music magazine cover, I decided to use the same Q magazine cover that I had previously used as inspiration for my school magazine. This was because I wanted to develop and improve the structure of the magazine further onto my music magazine.

I have chosen to use two images, which are also black and white on my contents page. Unlike the Q magazine, I have used the same model in all of my images. The larger image on the Q magazine cover, shows a long shot of the band featured.

However I wanted to show a close up image in the contents page. A picture which shows power and authority, and a model who is the main focus, representing the target audience who are reading the magazine.When designing my music magazine I looked at my school magazine that I had originally made and I used a similar structure on my music magazine. However when viewing and analysing my school magazine, I tried to see what could be improved and developed, so I could use it to improve my own magazine. Even though I have used a different colour scheme, I have used the colours in a similar way to the way they are used in the Q magazine. I have also used similar wording to the Q magazine, as it is a similar age group and type of music my own target audience are.

When designing and constructing my double page spread, I researched different double page spread layouts from existing media products to inspire and guide me in the structure and build of the feature. I have developed this existing media product and constructed it to fit the layout and design of the magazine. Unlike the media product, I have not placed my image in the centre of the double page spread, but I have placed it on the left hand side of the page. This was so that the model in the picture looks like she is looking at the writing on the right hand side of the page, showing a connection between the model and the writing, to portray to the audience that the model was saying the speech on the opposite page.

I have developed and constructed similar features from the media product, shown top left, as it has helped to improve my own magazine cover to make it look more professional. Like the media product, I have chosen to make the title speech, and have chosen the speech marks to be a different colour to the speech.

I have taken inspiration from this Adele picture for my own photographs.

I like this image as the deep thought look that Adele is portraying shows emotion. I wanted to create a similar image for my contents page. This image gave me inspiration for a black and white photo magazine, as I like the style and the quality of the picture.

In order to create a similar black and white image, I used a white/cream background for my image, this makes the model stand out more.

I have also chosen to dress the model in black as this emphasises her face when the picture is black and white, as the background is white.

I also tried to make the make-up of the model look as simple and natural as possible.