Q1.) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

MAST HEAD

Here you can see my masthead alongside a current rap magazines masthead. In my opinion I would say that my masthead is conventional due to its colour scheme of black and white and grey which are commonly used in this specific genre of magazine. This ensure that its relevant and ties in with other current magazines of its genre as well as appealing to my target audience. I know this from the research I carried out prior to creating my own and picked up on the pattern of the type of fonts and colours used to consider when I came to design my own. However as you can see I have tried to make my mast head slightly more original by using the gradient tool on Photoshop to give a fading effect rather than just using a plain singular block colour that every other magazine uses.

MISE EN SCENEFor my main image I decided to use a black back drop and pinned it to the wall behind my model in order for the outcome of the images to be conventional. I know that it is a conventional techniques as during my research I came to the conclusion that white, or predominantly black, backgrounds were used in almost all the magazines I came across within the same genre as my own. This is where I gained my inspiration of and why I tried to re-create it. By doing this it also ensures that the colours scheme will appeal to my target audience as its what they're used to and will become recognisable colours used for the rap genre magazine.I used a medium shot of my model of her on the side looking over her shoulder to portray a mysterious vibe as well as being inspired by many rap artists that also have posed like this. For example, Rihanna did a similar pose in the Rolling Stone magazine cover she did in 2013. The reason I used the medium shot was due to the fact I wanted her facial expression to be clearly seen as well as also being able to slightly see her body language and a sense of what clothing she’s wearing to further appeal to the audience as it will appeal to them. Once I had my images I then edited them to emphasize her features and to make it blend with everything else on the cover which I have also posted the evidence of this previously.

COSTUMES & PROPSFor my main image I used only a couple of props as I wanted to focus more on her face. These props were a thick gold chain and a thin gold body chain. The reason as to why I chose these was because they connote wealth which is what I wanted to promote to my target audience as within the rap industry wealth is heavily emphasized. Also, the thick gold chains are very frequently stereotypically worn by almost all rappers which will further emphasize this idea to my primary audience and will draw them in as I will appeal to them as well as them recognizing that it’s a common rapper possession.In the image the only clothes that can be seen is the top top half of her shirt and the reason I chose this shirt is because the ‘flannel’ shirt is very high in fashion at this current time and is repeatedly worn by popular rap artists. Below is a couple of images showing this and the one on the right hand side on Kanye West shows him wearing a thick gold chain and a red flannel shirt giving further proof that the props and costume I chose arerelevant and appealing to the target audience.

TITLE FONT & STYLES

Down the left hand side are images of the fonts used on my magazine, all of which I found on the website called ‘Dafont.com’. The two types of fonts above were used as they appear to represent graffiti and so I decided these would be good fonts to use as it fits in with the stereotype as well as appealing to my target audience. I also know that it will appear to my audience due to this type of font being used in current rap/pop magazines. For example, as you can see on the red font above is a print screen of a font used in the VIBE magazine also presenting a graffiti type font who share the the same target audience as to my magazines. On the far right hand side is an image of Chris Brown who it a highly popular rap/pop artists who is sat in front of his graffiti art work. This image support my earlier statement that graffiti is stereotypically associated with rappers. This is also shown in the ‘Mirror on the wall’ music video by Lil Wayne (popular rapper) and Bruno Mars (famous pop artists).

The font above is what I used for my front cover headlines due to it bing a blunt sans serif font as well as being very bold in order to stand out and be easily seen and read. I found that this technique was also used in vibe magazine also for their cover headlines. This shows that the font is conventional as its used on other current rap magazines and is easily recognised.

VS

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PEOPLEThe people who I’ve used within my magazine are conventional for various reasons. First of all for example would be their age. As you can see they’re young and are around the same age as the people who are the primary target audience and so will attract this age audience further by using an artist of the same age as them in order for them to be able to relate.

Also, the two females featured are wearing a decent amount of makeup with their hair done giving the connotations that they care about their appearance and how they appear to others.

These people also have similar fashion sense to each as are wearing pretty much the same shirt by both wearing the ‘flannel’ shirt which has previously just been spoken about. This again is conventional as this is the fashion sense which is stereotypically worn by my target audience. This again will attract my target audience due to the two characters both being of the same age as them as well as having the same sense of style.

COPY/WRITTEN CONTENTIn a few various different parts of my magazine I used the written content and language as a means to further express my chosen genre. For example on the main page it shows who the featured artist is which is ‘2GEEZ’. The reason I chose this name was it sounds similar to the real life rapper ‘2chainz’ however I replaced ‘chainz’ with ‘geez’ due to my featured rappers real initials being ‘GG’. Also by using the actual number ‘2’ rather than spelling it out also gives connotations of rappers as they often use numbers rather than the spelling of them in their songs and so the abbreviation reflects this. For example ‘Bound 2’ by Kanye West or ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’ by Tinie Tempah.

Here is another example of how I used language to further convey my genre by using the word ‘freshest’. The reason being due to by carrying out all of my research I discovered that this was a frequently used word throughout a range of magazines I came across and so decided to incorporate it into my own. This again is conventional as it is obviously the type of language that my target audience say also and so will appeal to them due to it being relatable and more relaxed due to being informal.

HOW IS GENRE REFLECTED IN YOUR MAGAZINE?Within my magazine I have used several techniques in order to reflect my genre some of which I've already spoken about. For example, the language is one technique as it shows the type of words said by the people who are my target audience and so will appeal to them due to it being recognisable and relatable.

The colour use I used also helps convey my genre as I found that during my research the black white and red colour scheme appeared to be used quite often in magazines of the same genre as mine. The reason I think this may be due to the strong contrast between the three colours especially when the white represents purity and harshly juxtaposed to the dark and mysterious black giving connotations of evil as well as the colour red emphasising the idea of danger but also passion.

Although there isn't a large scale of props used/seen there are a couple which were deliberately used to give the right representation. This being the gold chains around her neck which connote wealth and highly worn as a fashion statement by a large range of rappers. For example ‘2 chainz’ shown on the right hand side.

FRESHEST

2GEEZ

LAYOUT OF FRONT COVERFor my front cover I decided to follow the convention used by XXl magazine the Big Sean addition. This convention was, as you can see, the featured artists name written in the background behind the artists face which gives the audience an idea of who will be within the issue as well as attracting their individual fans and overall rap fans in general. However, as much I loved this idea I didn't want to copy it completely and so just kept the different artists on my cover all written in the same font and size rather than XXL version of varying the fonts and styles. Although I followed this convention from XXL I have also challenged them as this is the first time I've seen this done and am yet to see it used again.The proportion of text to images is larger however this is expected for a music magazine as there is typically just an image of one artist and the rest being text of the others and so again follows conventions.I also followed the convention of the use of a ‘skyline’ although it isn't used on the example above it is almost always used on every other magazine i came across within my research. The skyline was used to give the audience an idea of what is within the magazine as apposed to who.Again, I followed the convention of using a large bold mast head at the top of the cover however I also challenged this as I used the gradient tool on Photoshop so that the black faded into the white which I haven't seen on other magazine as they always use just one block colour and so differentiates my masthead to others.

LAYOUT OF CONTENTSMy contents page challenges other rap magazines conventions as I created a layout which I have not seen before on other magazines of my genre. This is because during my research I noticed that the magazines where using quite a basic layout of just simply listing the main pages with their page reference usually down the left hand side with an image of an artist filling out the background.

I again challenged the usual conventions as I used a large graffiti style font for my page references in order for them to stand out further as well as tying in with the bold page title and sub titles in a similar style font. The fonts however do follow the rap conventions although I haven't seen them so heavily used on a contents and more on a cover.

I did follow the typical magazine convention when it came to the editors note which was neatly written in a grey box still using the relevant language.

Another way in which I challenged the average magazine conventions was by the fact that I incorporated four different social platforms in order to widen my fan base by gaining followers and attention from even more people who may have not even heard of us until they came across the magazine through these networks.

LAYOUT OF DOUBLE PAGEFor my double page spread I followed one of the most commonly used convention which was using one main image for the entire background and filling out the space around the artists with the relevant information. As you can see the characters are positioned on the right hand side of the page and so the text can be written on the left in tidy boxed in improve the professional look. This convention is shown in the image at the bottom however the image is on the opposite side to mine.I then challenged the usual conventionsby inserting another image and incorporating into my page which as you can see was a gold chain which has relevance due to the idea of wealth and the frequent use of a fashion statement by many rap artistsAs my double page was an artist interview I followed the convention of the use of a pull quote where I just took a small snippet of text from the actual interview and enlarged it somewhere else on the page to attract more readers as it pulls people in and gives them an idea on what may be spoken about within the interview.