In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (I.e. of music magazines)

The title of the existing magazine NME is placed in the left hand corner and the masthead does not spread across the top of the cover. This is similar to mine as I have tried to give the cover of my magazine the same style. The existing magazine is also in a bold font that stands out to the reader immediately because it is a short and sharp title. The layout of my magazine is also similar to the NME cover. I have put my photo more to one side of the page and put it slightly crossing over the masthead as my research showed that the style of the NME magazine and I wanted to create that style in mine. I have used a similar font for my masthead as the one in the existing magazine. I thought it worked well as it stands out clear to the reader. The photo I took is similar to the photo of the existing magazine as it fills most of the cover; I have also picked someone to be on the front of my magazine that suits the style I was going for. He is dressed in similar style of clothes that are the same colour. As the background on the existing magazine I was looking at is white I kept mine the same. The dark colour of clothing works well as it creates a contrast and stands out.
I have also used the same colour for my headline that the existing magazine has used and placed it across the body of the person on the cover. I have made it the biggest headline on the cover so it stands out and is the first thing the reader sees when picking up the magazine. I have also used the idea of writing under the main headline, taken from the existing magazine where I have made it slightly smaller but kept the font the same and made it white so it still stands out. I have also took the same colour scheme from the existing magazine of white, red and black as I feel the colours work well together and the black font on white background makes it clearly stand out. I have also added an additional colour of gold just to highlight certain cover stories. This is to improve the appearance of the cover and to grab the reader’s attention as they will feel the highlighted cover stories are important. I have kept to the same font and colour of headings from the cover page to the contents page. This is to make a pattern and to give my magazine a style. Most of the fonts are bold so they stand out and I have used bold colours such as black and red. It creates an effect to the magazine and makes it eye catching and effective.

Unlike the existing magazine cover I have looked at I have put other bands of similar genre of music on my cover. Bands such as ‘Kasbian’, and artists such as; Ian Brown, Liam Gallagher and John Lennon have been referred to on my cover so people who enjoy listening to those bands will be interested in reading the magazine. I have also referred to these bands and artists in my contents page to match my cover stories. I have made my created artist to be similar to the one mentioned throughout my cover and contents so the readers will be interested in him and will want to read on to find out more about him. My created artist is represented as a past band member who has now come back into the music scene but as a solo artist. It is a similar genre of music to what is shown on the cover and contents and the artist ‘Jonny Wellens’ is shown to have attitude but matched it to the style of music he plays. The artist is similar to who you would find on the front of NME magazines and in the pictures on the cover and contents he is stood and dressed in a similar way to artists on existing magazines. The way he is dressed also suits the style of music he plays.
My contents page follows my cover page in the way it is set out and the colour scheme. The fonts I have used also match the fonts and colours on the cover. This is so the reader recognises them from the cover stories. I have used big pictures on my contents so they are what the reader sees first. The pictures are of the same artist who is on the cover; the reader will then recognise him and know this issue is about him.