In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

The masthead for my magazine is big and bold in comparison to the rest of the text. This is typical of other magazines for this genre. The misspelling of 'Candy' with an 'i' instead of a 'y' makes it playful and rebels against the correct spelling.

For my main photo I used a photo of a young pop singer who features in the magazine along with other commercial, mainstream pop acts. The use of a featuring celebrity for the main photo is typical of most music magazines as well as pop music magazines. The photo I used was medium close-up with the young girl smiling. I used this image because it communicates connotations of fun, lively, girly and innocent.

On the front cover of my magazine, I used a range of fonts that are all sans serif to make it informal and therefore appropriate for the target audience. The main font that I used for the coverlines and straplines is Eras Bold ITC. I used this font because it is bold and simple yet informal and playful because of it being italic, it's also easy to read making it suitable for the age range.

I included a freebie on my front cover, this is to encourage my audience to buy my product and gives the magazine added value. I positioned it in the top, right corner of the front cover with a yellow background so that it was noticeable for the reader.

I used a skyline at the top of my front cover that says: “Your fortnightly glossy music mag!” this addresses the reader by interacting with the reader using ‘Your’ and the use of ‘Glossy’ and the use of slang: ‘mag’ makes it formal and appropriate for the age group.

I also put text across the bottom of the page which I used to show what other features will be included in the magazine. This makes the reader interested and encourages them to buy it.

Throughout my front cover and throughout my magazine as a whole, I used a lot of bleeding with text and images. This makes the magazine playful and gives fun, youthful and lively connotations.

For my magazine I used a 3 column lay out. I laid all the feature information on the left hand column and filled the other columns with other features. I listed all the pages down one column so that it is clear and easily readable for the audience. I put the page numbers in a pink star that allowed it to bullet point the text and to make it fun and playful.

At the top of each column I put a heading for the feature in that column. For these headings I used a range of different fonts that are appropriate for the feature. For example, for the word ‘celebrity’ I used a PopstarAutograph font to play on the idea of it being a celebrity autograph and make it fun, lively and appropriate for the reader.

I put pink outlines around images to make them stand out and also put them on a slant to make it seem disorganised and relaxed making it suitable for my target audience of young girls.

I put lots of images and lots of pieces of text on the page and made them all very close together, making it seem very ‘jam-packed’ and fun and interesting for the reader.

On my double page spread I used a 3 column layout that I also used on my contents page. Keeping the same amount of columns throughout is a convention followed by all magazines as well as pop music magazines. Because of this I followed this convention and used in my product.

I took quotes from the text and made them bigger and stand out amongst the rest of the text. These quotes among the text makes it informal and if the reader just glances at the page then their eye get caught on these quotes and it encourages them to read the article.

The use of these quotes among the text is similar to other conventions used in magazines and specifically pop magazines as it makes it seem playful and very “easygoing”.

As well as putting quotes among the text, I also put a picture and made the text run around it. This makes it very “jam-packed” and gives informal, playful, lively and fun connotations. Many pop magazines use this feature in their articles as it is suitable for an audience of young girls.

On the right hand column I featured a quiz on the celebrity that I wrote the article about. I used a yellow background for it so that it clearly stood out on the page and stood out as a separate feature from the rest of the article. I created the look of it being a strip across the page by having it all on a slight slant. This made it look disordered and very informal with lots on connotations (playful, lively, bubbly, fun) that are suitable for my target audience.

Similarly to my front cover and my contents page, I also used bleeding on my double page spread. I layered up text and pictures and made text boxes bleed over onto others. I did this on the quiz column as I made it so that the title of the quiz bled over the text box with the questions in and then made that bleed over a box containing a photo. This use of lots of bleeding made it very “jam-packed” and disorganised which is what I aimed for in order to attract my target audience.

Throughout my magazine I kept certain themes and features. This allows the magazine to have a certain sense of layout and makes it recognisable to the audience that it is Candi magazine and gives it an individual theme rather than just being a mixture of lots of different products.

I used bleeding throughout with text and images and used coloured text boxes for it so that it is easily readable for the audience and so that it stands out.

I used the same range of fonts throughout my magazine and whenever I wrote the magazines name, Candi, I used the same font as what I used for the masthead.

I kept the same 3 column layout throughout my magazine, this allowed me to be able to keep the same structure for the content all through my product.

I stuck to the same colour scheme throughout and used a range of pink and yellow more than any other colour. These colours give girly, young and fun connotations that attract my target audience.