'In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge fo

Conventions of a

Music Magazine

Use of Conventions

Developing Conventions

Challenging Conventions

...Applying the conventions such as a structured article, a large image filling one page, a quotation and a bold and colourful page overall, making it eyecatching and most of all attracting teenage girls.

Another thing that I ensured was something completely new and fresh- my masthead, and my branding.

After a lot of thinking, and coming up with a few different names, I decided to call my pop magazine 'Popaholic', which I knew was not an already existing magazine.

It works well as a pun, similar to that of 'Chocaholic' and the masthead relates to a teenage audience as it is very fun and eye-catching. It is also quite a cheesy name, fitting with the common style of a pop magazine.

Although I followed the majority of the conventions used for a music magazine, I also tried to challenge conventions so my magazine would be unique, fresh, and something new on the magazine shelf.

When researching I looked at the conventions each double page spread included...

This is a contents page from another magazine. I followed their use of a bold, large, centered masthead

However I challenged their style by creating my own, more structured, clear style with a centered piece of writing- (a message from the editor to the readers) making it more personal to the readers.

One of the things I did to ensure I had a unique product was my photography. Although my main image is a typical 'pop magazine' style photo with it's posed shot and direct address, it does not follow some of the conventions of other pop photography.

Firstly, I noticed when researching that most of the pop magazines today use a long shot, or medium posed shot for the front cover of their magazine.

However I decided that a close up shot would work best for my magazine, therefore I have gone against the norm by creating a new and interesting approach to photography.

I hoped in making this creative new masthead that it would create a good brand recognition for my pop magazine, which means it would easily be recognized and known to associate with my magazine, making it popular and well known for it's success and great content.

There are many typical conventions of a music magazine, that I have tried to follow to create a fresh but still conventional magazine of my own.

Main Image

Brand Recognition

My magazine has developed a lot of the standard conventions used by pop magazines, along with alternative genres such as indie, rock and house.

The use of conventions helps my magazine become a professional looking, high standard magazine that could fit in with any other magazine out there today, but I tried to develop these conventions further to give my magazine an edge, and make it stand out as a fresh, unique pop magazine.

Masthead

Colour Palette

So overall, through the process of planning and creating, I ensured my magazine was not only going to look professional and conventional of a magazine already on the shelf, but to be a completely fresh magazine that people would still want to buy. Also a product that would attract a publisher to market and to create a good profile for, like Bauer or Egmont (who carry We Love Pop- a popular teen pop magazine aimed at girls), similar to my own magazine.

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

Anchorage Text

Sell lines/Lures

Secondly, I used a tactic most magazines use- Freebies, but I developed it further by applying my freebie to fit the interests of my audience (teen girls), therefore I chose make-up.

Firstly, I used the same model (a popstar called Ally Child) throughout the whole magazine, which is rare in a magazine but I used it so that my magazine stands out to my audience. By having a female face on the cover encourages female readers to buy the magazine, which is my target audience, therfore it will boost my marketing.

Bar code and

Web address

Freebies

Looking at my magazine against this 'Top of the Pops' magazine, I can see the similarities between the two, showing i have followed the conventions of this genre of magazine (pop music).

A few of the conventions I have followed, to ensure my product looks professional are:

• My front cover looks quite busy- there is a lot going on in terms of lures, anchorage text, and lots of side stories such as an exclusive look into a pop stars closet.
• My main image is also quite conventional, from the pose, to the direct address with the model looking directly at the audience (pop lovers) who would buy the magazine.
• The colour palette fits the genre of pop as well as suiting my target audience of teenage girls, another convention, as pop magazines mainly aim at girls.
• I included a 'freebie', to entice the reader to buy, and this is something that pop magazines so commonly, as a lure for the audience they are marketing to.

Evaluation- Question 1