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

My magazine uses a range of conventions from the real media. For example my Masthead which is at the top left hand corner of my front cover, this mast head I came up with was influenced by another one I saw on a magazine called Q. Q magazine’s masthead contains a capital letter ‘Q’ I have taken this approach in my masthead and changed it a bit, my version is with a capital letter but I made it the starting letter for my word ‘retrospective’, the font I used is called ‘retro party’ I chose this font because it suits the name of the magazine and this font is modern which makes it more attractive to my audience also included in my masthead is a little star which is there to make my masthead look original and unique from the other magazines that pursue the same target audience.

I have also taken another convention from the ‘Q’ magazine as you can see on the front cover. My model just like the one on the ‘Q’ magazine has their back towards the camera, although they are very simialr I have challenged the normal conventions and I intend to make my magazine very unique and my model by having his back towards the camera creates a mysterious mood about the front cover and teenagers would want to see and know whos on the front cover and they will sense the need to read the magazine in order to find out who it is.

I have a ‘Top 50 Tracks’ in my magazine which I have taken the idea from several other magazines as makes my magazine look more attractive because giving the reader an insight into the top 50 tracks will encourage them to give the magazine a look because the top 50 list will most likely contain the song they like to listen to etc.

From my questionnaire results I found out that most people from ages 16 and up are interested in techno, dance and RnB, so I created a magazine which contained several elements from these genres for example the RnB side I used a picture of my model wearing a waistcoat to give a wedding feel as RnB songs are usually about love. for the techno side I added a font on the contents page which was called 'retro party' I chose this font because it makes the page look lively because it looks like an equalizer.

The colour theme of my magazine is black white and different shades of blue I have chosen all these colours because they all compliment each other well, the theme is different through out the pages and this is similar to other magazines like 'NME' who experiment with a wide range of colour within their magazine.