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

Title of the magazine

The title, or masthead, of my music magazine, TRICK, is displayed at the top left of the front cover, covering a large area of the front cover so it stands out. This is usually seen in most magazines of various genres as it is the focal point of the magazine so it can be recognised easily. It also follows the rest of the magazines colour scheme, being green, white and black. This is a convention which many successful magazines use. The TRICK font is sharp and bold to show how it is about the new style of music that is the latest and greatest hits during the time. I feel this is a very common style of font for a new/contemporary music magazine title as it is very bold and sharp so it is likely to stay in their mind when they see it.

Mise-en-scene of image
For my front cover the mise-en-scene of the images is very important, as for nearly all magazines the images are the main focal point and what draws the audience in. With my main image I decided to place it on the right side of the page as this is also a norm for many magazines of all genres. This is because then there is lots of room for subtitles all over the page about different articles within the magazine.

For my contents page I used a large image of the same person on the front cover to relate back to the front cover. All of the other images used are small and are related to articles on my contents page.

I used the photo album look on my double page spread, where the image related to the interview of the chosen artist. The other image which dominates the left page shows the artist who is interviewed this has a quote at the bottom of the image, the image is of the guy looking arrogant which relates to the rest of the pictures of him and the interview content.

Costumes and props
On my front cover the artist is wearing what is stereotypical of a band member to wear as it is this skinny style that shows off how thin they are. He also has a mobile phone and an ipod in his hands as this is to relate to the arrogance of the artist, as he is portrayed to 'not give a damn' about anything other than himself.

On my contents page, similar clothes are for this artist to again fit this stereotype of this particular musician. In the large image of a girl band they have all been given microphones to pretend that they are in a rehearsal and the clothes they are wearing are typical of a pop group. In the image at the top left of the contents page the girl is pictured wearing clothes as if she was off to a rave to show her attitude. The two other images show two different lads that are in trendy male clothes that would be expected of a young male to wear in order to be fashionable.

On the double page spread, the artist on show is wearing a skinny shirt to suggest the genre of music and target audience as teenagers are often known for wearing this style of fashion. The prop of the ipod relates to the information within the interview as it adds the sense of being down to earth even though he is famous.

Music genre and how your magazine suggest it
The music genre which my magazine is referring to is pop, alternative etc the magazine mainly focuses on what is the latest big thing in the music industry. This is shown and suggests it in various ways in my opinion. Firstly it is the images of the artists and how they are presented, along with the colour scheme used throughout the magazine. The best example of these colours in my opinion are shown on the double page spread. The text and font can suggest the alternative genre as the large fonts use a bold rhythm along with the wording of the text and names of the artists.

Written content
The content within my music magazine pages is easy to read and easy to understand and there is no background colours which effect the text. The large text on the front cover is noticeable from a distance to highlight the artist and draw the audience in. This is a norm for well known magazines as it is the main source of bringing the target audience in. The magazine features content such as lists of artists, various advertisements which highlight content inside the magazine and paragraphs of text showing information from an interview. The interview is an informative article instead of using the questions and answers, in order as it brings more to the article than just the bland answers.

Layout

The layout is very straight forward as I have aligned the masthead of the front cover at the top with the barcode and price at the bottom. The titles on the page are all around the image except that of the image which is on top of the artist as it is about him. There is a bar along the top with different artists that are in the magazine, but are not seen as important to entice the reader to purchase the magazine.

The contents page is laid out so that there is a large banner along the top, with a list of features in the magazine down the left column. There are lots of images on the contents page with the page number of that corresponding image.

The double page spread has one page that is taken up by a whole image of the artist that is interviewed with a large quote at the bottom. Then on the second page of the double page spread is three columns of text, a breaker line between the text and the bottom of the page with a subscription URL, page number, distribution date and the name of the magazine. At the top of the page is a title for that article so the reader knows what it is about.