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2. 2 In what ways does your magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines? I tried to keep with convention when designing my magazine. The magazine cover used conventions such as the large masthead, price on the front etc. The contents page used conventions such as a main image In the background, and a small amount of text on this page. The double page spread used conventions such as images covering half the page and the use of lots of quotes on the page. I challenged conventions in the design of my front cover. My initial front cover can be seen on the right. Here I cut the image of the cover artist out to produce a silhouette. If you look at the anchorage text it says – ‘who is the real face of hip hop?’. To enhance this anchorage text I did this, as now when looking at the anchorage text the audience are really thinking about who this silhouette is of. However I was told I had to change it to keep with a more conventional style magazine. On the left is the edited front cover. Here I added the image of the artist back into the magazine to make it look a bit more conventional. However after asking members of my target audience about which magazine cover they liked and which they would actually purchase, 85% (17 out of the 20 people asked) of the people preferred to purchase the original front cover, because of the uniqueness in it’s design as it is something fresh, bold and new.

3. 3 How does your magazine represent particular social groups? My magazine represents social groups such as the people that like hip hop music. It is specifically targeted at these types of people.

4. 4 What kind of institution would distribute your magazine and why? My magazine looks a bit like a magazine that you might originally consider to be from the underground. However, I believe that it can easily be distributed in a regular newsagent alongside other existing magazines. It is something that is new and fresh. In my research I found that there is a huge decline in the hip hop magazine market with many magazines going under and having to become online magazines. This is why I tried to something different with my magazine. By giving it a unique design and feel to it, it will appeal more to my target audience so they then buy the magazine. The bright contrasting colours also stand out at a distance, allowing for the audience’s eyes to travel straight through to the magazine. By making it eye catching, members of my target audience can easily spot it as it will stand out and draw their attention to the magazine.

5. 5 Who would be the target audience for your magazine? My magazine is targeted at anyone who likes to listen to hip hop. The magazine is specifically targeted at an age group of 18+ because it is priced at £3.00. Most teenagers may not buy the magazine because of it’s price as it is a fact that most young people don’t have very much money to spend around.

6. 6 How did you attract/address your audience? My audience was attracted in different ways. My front cover uses bright colours that contrast well with the background. The magazine also has articles about key artists on the hip hop scene right now such as 50 Cent and Tinchy Stryder. You can see that some of the main sell lines include stories about hip hop artists from America and the UK. This is t try and appeal to everyone that likes to listen to hip hop, whether it be rap or grime. To possibly attract female audiences as well, which is what I did aim to do from the beginning, there is also some gossip about a hip hop star included in the magazine. It is a fact that female audience love gossip and reading about it, which is one of the reasons that gossip magazines sell so well. To try and attract these female audiences I included some hip hop related gossip into the magazine.

7. 7 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your magazine? From the construction of my magazine I learnt that it is import to plan out the layout of the magazine prior to designing it as it makes the design process that much easier. However the other thing to remember is that this plan is rough outline. Nothing about the layout can be perfected until the design process as you may find little problems along the way. For example on the DPS I planned to have a fact file on the artist in the middle of the page, with an image in the bottom left hand corner. However, I found that the design looked better with the image in the top half of the page and fact file on the car in the image. I also learnt how to stick to a particular theme. I chose a theme to use as a house style and to try and stick to through the different pages of the magazine. After sticking to this theme I can now see how it affects the magazine. Each page looks like it belongs to the magazine because they all have similarities. It is this that also makes it stand out from other magazines as someone could distinguish between the style I have used, to a style used by someone else. I also learnt that photography isn’t as easy as it looks. There are many quick fixes, however by taking a good picture it saves that much time in the design process.

8. 8 Looking back to your school magazine cover, what do you feel you have learnt between creating that and creating your music magazine? How did the school magazine task help? Between the designs of the school newsletter and the design of the magazine there is a significant difference between the two. With the school newsletter I tried to design it in a way I thought was best with no real consideration for themes, house styles, colour schemes or designs. With the magazine after I had learnt more about magazines by properly researching into them I designed a much better piece. The difference in the quality of both tasks is clear as soon as you look at it. Designing the newsletter first helped because it showed me the types of things that need to be done in the main task. It also gave me a chance to practice researching and writing a rationale, which I then could do a better job of in the main task.