Question 1.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
There are three main conventions used within media, these being; Technical (camera techniques and shots), Symbolic (clothing, colours etc) and Written/Audio (music etc). These help the magazine create their own identity, making it stand out from other magazines. One convention I have used is cover lines. I have used these throughout my front page to advertise the magazines content and style. My cover lines connote youth to some extent as they are quite simple and bold. As well I have used capitalised letters at the beginning of my interview, making it easy for the reader to see where to start reading from. The genre of my magazine is not just one, but a variety of different genres. I chose to do this because based on my audience research this is what people wanted in their magazine and I found the biggest gap in the market for magazines was for magazines with a wider range of music content. I didn’t really take inspiration from other magazines as I chose what I wanted to do, however if I had to link my magazine to another existing one it would probably be ‘Q’ magazine, as they also have a range of genres, even if their range isn’t quite as large as mine. I chose to keep my masthead quite basic becuase that way its not too female or male orientated. I used the colour red as it is bold, in your face, and will apeal to both genders. I used a serif font and enlarged the text size to make it both easy to read and to help it stand out against all the other magazines that are around. For this cover I have only used one main image, keeping the page clean. I did this to connote to the audience that the magazine isnt too busy. However I have used lots of coverlines, to show it is not too plain and to attract lots of different types of people. The main colour scheme of my cover is black and red, these colours contrast and look good together. The model is looking straight at the camera and therefore straight at the audience. Her pose suggests she has an attitude but is also 'cool' and down to earth. I kept my contents page quite 'tidy' to follow on from the front page, although I changed my colour scheme to blue. The text 'contents' is really large as I wanted that to be the first thing the readers see. I have used a layout which looks quite professional. Unlike the front cover I have used lots more images. This was for two reasons - 1) we needed to include atleast 5 images and 2) I think to attract the readers attention to the contents page, there needs to be more images.

I have used quite a unique cover line for my double page spread, tying in with 'Ramonas' attitude. I have used 6 separate columns, all the same width with the same spaces between them. This is used in most magazines to keep it looking professional and I think it adds consistency to the article. I have used lots of pull quotes throughout the text, breaking up the text so its not just block text. Throughout the text are several pull quotes chosen from the extract. Pull quotes are used to break up large amounts of texts and highlight important/interesting phrases or quotes. A kicker is a phrase found above the headline. Usually set in a smaller type than the headline, the kicker can serve as an introduction or as a type of section heading to identify a regular column, for instance. For my double paged spread I have used a fair amount of text highlighting the subject, this being the word ‘Ramona’.