Question 1: In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines?

My music magazine uses some conventions of real magazines but also challenges others. When creating my masthead I wanted it to stand out and be different from other magazines so I decided to make it only be an outline of a font and to not be filled with colour, I haven't seen any other magazines do this so I thought it would make mine different.

The location used for my images is close to my house and I have visited it plenty of times, I thought that the graffiti nature of the location fitted well with the urban theme of the magazine. A variety of shots were used including a medium shot, long shot and low angled shot. The reason each image which is featured in the magazine is a different shot is to interest the audience and to make the magazine look appealing. When doing my research I noticed that in most magazines the shot angles and types varied throughout the magazine which looked good so I decided to use this convention in my own magazine. My images were manipulated in photoshop but not very much, they were manipulated to look clearer, brighter and more professional as all real magazines would do.

The costume of the model consists of a 'Barbour' jacket, this type of jacket is heavily worn by artists and people that follow an urban culture, there were no props used. As the model is a female the clothing is rather typical, however if the model was a male they would probably be wearing trainers and sports wear. The model is mixed race, this is conventional as most of the urban magazines I looked at had mixed race or black artists featuring in them, there are not many white rappers. It is generally youngish people that listen to this genre of music which is why the model and artists featured in the magazine are in their teens or 20's, the oldest artist I have seen to be in an urban magazine is probably in their early 30's so I followed in the footsteps of these magazines and used a young model.

In the UK there is a group of rappers called 'Boy Better Know' they use a particular font called SF Automaton for their logo and stuff, I liked the font and its unique so I downloaded it off Da Font and decided to use it for my masthead and headings for pages.

Here shows the logo and font.

All the colours used on my pages match with the colours shown in the images, I used the blues and oranges to make the magazine have a scheme and to look attractive.

When researching I found that 'Vibe' magazine had a direct and informal approach to their audience, they use slang words which relate to the genre of the magazine and to the type of people that would be reading it. I decided to use abbreviations and some light slang words in my magazine to make it more readable for the audience

The genre of my magazine is reflected through the artists featured in the magazine, the articles featuring and the urban colour schemes and images.




·        Layout of Front Cover, Contents page and Double page spread: take each of these on their own and discuss how you have followed or challenged conventions for the construction of each of the pages.  What is the balance/proportion of text to image? Is this a conventional approach? What was the purpose of this approach? Have you challenged conventions for any aspects o f your magazine pages or have you decided to follow conventions? Why? Use another magazine to support why you have taken this decision 

·        Concluding Paragraph: Overall have you challenged or followed conventions? Why? (to make is behave like a real magazine/to satisfy  audience expectations/give the audience something different )