COMPLETED Final Pieces

Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

PHOTOS:
I set specific days for both tasks for when I wanted to get the photos. With the school magazine, I was able to take the photos within lesson time, lunch or after school. I found this an easier set of photos to take as I knew that I needed to feature photos of students in the natural school environment therefore it was an easier set up rather than with my music magazine (where the photos would have to be taken in free time). To send out a good message of the school I had to ensure that my model looked smart (especially with their costume) rather than scruffy. The costume was easy to create as the model could just wear what they wore to school that day, I didn't really have a choice to what they wore.  When I went into the prelim task I had not given much thought into the setting, the pose of the model and the overall look I was aiming for. I feel that from the preliminary task that I have learnt to not rush the process of taking the photos as the perfect one will come along eventually even if it means changing settings if one wasn't as suitable. This happened when I wanted to take a photo outside however the sunlight was reflecting on the models therefore leading me to taking my photos inside (for example the cover photo is situated in the library). Another issue with taking a photo with outside meant that the location could not be clear that it was a school (therefore questioning the intentions of the magazine) therefore I decided to add a prop of a book. The book connotes a school environment as eager students are learning. I was impressed and happy with the photos for my preliminary task especially because they were taken with a camera phone (iPhone 4S which has 8 megapixels). My preliminary task was the main basis of my work on Abode Photoshop, I was only introduced to this software a few weeks before where I had time to play around with the different tools and I learnt to do things such as changing the eye colour and covering blemishes. A particular skill of which I learnt and then used in my preliminary task was how I took my front cover photo in colour but then changed it to black and white then using Photoshop I was able to make the model in colour so that they stood out and looked dominant.  Whilst getting to grips with Photoshop I knew that I had to try and understand all the features fairly quickly as I didn't want to spend too much time on my preliminary task as I was eager to see the finished product and then start my main task. With the prelim task photos I barely touched the photos, I just played around with simple features such as the brightness and contrast.

My music magazine photo planning took much more effort when I was choosing how to arrange my photos. From the research that I done I found that the photos are stylised, shot in a studio setting with conventional poses and and costumes which I investigated. With my music magazine it was harder to set a date with my models and to find a suitable setting which would constitute all the features I was after; these included basics such as good lighting and a plain background. The setting was found to be commonly a plain background, I found this out from the research stage of the existing media. This meant that my preliminary task background would be more exciting than the music magazine. With this photo I knew that I needed to have an idea to what I was looking for instead of just going straight into taking photos and hoping for the best. I was able to get an idea from following the conventions of a pop magazine; I found this out during the research stage where I compared the different looks and poses from different genres of music so that I could make sure that my magazine would fit in. I gave myself a suitable amount of time in which to complete the research and planning process therefore I would have enough time to complete my product to a reasonable standard. The research and planning defiantly had a huge impact of my understanding of how magazines have their photos and layouts organised. Another thing I learnt from my research was the costume; I took notes on the style as well as making sure that the outfits weren't skimpy and raunchy of which would make them inappropriate for my target market as I didn't want to give them the idea that they should aspire to be like that. I knew that I had to get an amazing photo for the cover and double page spread; I feel that my photos were pretty average this is partly due to the fact of my photography skills being poor as I know nothing about it and didn't use the camera to its full potential.

Key features which I learnt from the preliminary task:
TECHNOLOGY:
How to use Photoshop (this was an important stage) with all the layers required to create the various cover lines etc. I developed my skills and understanding of the software which led to my music magazine looking more professional. As my understanding with the software grew I went through the process of trial and error to see what looks good and coordinates with conventions, an example of this would be finding a font of which fitted my genre.

IMPORTANT FEATURES:
With my preliminary task I successfully created house style by the yellow and blue colour scheme of which comes from the Wilmington badge. This was used continuously on my cover and onto the contents. However, I feel that this colour scheme was boring and repetitive, a larger variety of colours may have been a better idea. Despite this, the colour co-ordination goes well with only black, yellow and blue being used, an improvement could be adding something which is white. The layout of my cover is simple, but squashed. The way in which I positioned the text was poor; all the cover lines are cramped into the bottom half of the page making them look like one big paragraph. Whilst writing this text I wasn't taking any notice of the spacial awareness that I should've had because originally I had the title being enormous if it was printed out on paper. I have a large amount of white space on the top half of the page which makes it look empty; a look of sophistication can be achieved via white space however the positioning of the text has disallowed this. In order to improve this I feel that I should've added a couple more cover lines and spread them out across the whole page. This means that I would have to get the balance of it looking full of content but not too busy and messy. Whilst creating my music magazine I took into account this problem and tried to avoid it from happening again. An error of which I made was by using only two different fonts on the cover of which made it look boring; most magazines consist of around 6 different fonts as this number allows variety but yet not looking too different i.e. not including an elegant font then having a crazy chaotic font underneath. By having the fonts that I did use as sans serif, it made them clear and easy to read.

I achieved house style by using white, pink, black and yellow mostly. I used these colours throughout the three pages of my magazine. These colours compliment eachother as a combination of these colours are widely used e.g. pink and white, pink and black, black and yellow. House style was one of my main challenges of which I knew had to be overcome otherwise the work would not correspond and work simultaneously. I kept the house style theme simple by having it just as the colours used instead of using fonts or design elements to create it. The layout of the cover was something of which I struggled with majorly as it led me to having to recreate the look of my cover as the current one was not working. For my final cover I feel that the line which advertises 'Shona' is more bold and stands out more than the previous one did. My aim was for the cover to be symmetrical and have an ordered feel rather than a messy one of which would look childish, I feel that I have successfully managed to do so. I am happy with the overall layout of the contents as it looks neat and is easy to navigate, however I am unhappy with the amount of white space that there is. A reason for the amount of white space is that when I experimented by adding more content it looked out of place therefore I thought it would be best just to leave it. I felt by using the same colours for the different sections would make the reader recognise features of the magazine i.e. the page numbers are all in one colour. By positioning 'Downloading content' at the top of the page it meant that it dominated the page due to its size so that it would be clear to the reader what page it actually was. The last piece of the magazine that I created was the double page spread, this is my favourite page as I feel content with the layout, I feel that I have made a good use of space especially where I had room at the end of the article. At this point I had to decide whether or not I should either add to the article by asking a couple more questions or if I should do a quick fire questions section. I decided with the quick fire questions because I felt that they were more fun and quicker to read rather than more of an essay based Q&A. I really like the text positioning of the title on this page; an issue a faced was whether or not it should extend onto the second page. In the end, after trying it, I decided against it because it looked too spaced out so when I made the font bigger it took too much room. Also I had to position it so that none of the text was affected by the bend on the page.

IMPORTANCE OF DRAFTING:
With my preliminary task despite me drafting (see below) I didn't follow the draft as well as I should have as my cover ended up with all the cover lines pushed and squashed at the bottom of the page. I changed certain aspects such as the title of the magazine because 'Sixth Form Insider' was too long therefore it would have to be in a small font in order to fit onto the page.

When planning the layout for my music magazine I knew that I had to take many aspects into consideration. Therefore, to make sure that I could have all these aspects in place such as the punchy cover lines and the design elements I had to make more than one draft so if one idea didn't work out then I had another one to fall back on. In the end I did resort to doing another plan after I had created most of my product, I done this because I felt that the layout did not look right and wasn't suitable. In addition, I also drafted my double page spread article a few times so that I could fix it so that it did sound like a real character. Problems I came across were that it was slightly too informal, I also had to improve my introduction and create a more concluding conclusion.

 

DECISIONS:
Magazine title - after coming up with a variety of names which I felt fitted in well with the pop genre, I took to doing my own research by asking members of my target audience their favorite title.This enabled me to get a title of which fitted their tastes so that they would buy it.
Photos - when taking photos I had to see if I should use a tripod or free hand; I was able to use one in the prelim but not in music as I don't have one at home. A tripod is arguably better as it enables the photo to be clear and still which avoids any risks of blurs. However, I done all my photos freehand and I am happy with the outcome of them.
Costume - I had to find a costume of which was suitable for the pop genre, but one that enabled the balance being not too dressy but not too casual.
Timing - I wasn't sure of how long each page from my music magazine would take therefore I didn't want to start too late so that I wouldn't finish; for this reason I knew I had to conduct thorough research at a relatively fast pace. By using my preliminary task timings as a guideline I knew how much time it would roughly take me, however I had to take into account that the preliminary task was worth 0 marks whereas my music product was worth 60. As the music magazine also included another page (double page spread) I knew that I would have to allow myself more time. To my surprise, the DPS didn't take that long to construct after I had the final draft and the image cut out.

Evaluation Question 5

This video includes interviews with people who are in my age group to see if I successfully attracted my target audience. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTmgAIX9FGI

Conventions of Music Magazines

There are many different genres of music which are shown by having their own individual magazines. Whilst designing my pop magazine I will have to take into consideration whether or not there are certain conventions that I need to follow to make it easily distinguishable to other genres. I decided to list down the main genres and get ideas from existing media.

Pop (TOTP, WE <3 POP)

- design elements

- celebrity gossip (mostly pop artists)

- clothes (fashion tips)

- hair and beauty tips

- posters of artists 

- vibrant colours 

- puzzles/games/quizzes

- advice (relationships, problems) 

- title colour can change with each issue

Rock (Kerrang!, Uncut)

- features on old albums, interviews with film directors, music (gigs/festivals) and film news, and reviews of all major new album, film and DVD releases

- explicit stories

- darker colours such as red and black

- artists with strong make up

- artists with tattoos

- seductive/ half naked dress

- posters 

Alternative (NME, Mojo)

- features on: TV, tours, artists, music countdown, reviews

- posters 

- title colour usually stays the same (red for NME)

Evaluation Question 6

 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I started off by using simpler technologies which were easy to use but more interesting than just pictures and words. In the research and planning stages I used presentational devices such as Prezi to present my research into the actual contents of a contents page i.e. the information that is included - 

 http://rubyrhodeswgsbmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/contents-page-content.html

 I also used SlideRocket to present my double page spread article -
http://rubyrhodeswgsbmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/double-page-spread-q.html

In addition to these, I used an online bar chart so that I could present my findings of my research into deciding which magazine title would be best -
http://rubyrhodeswgsbmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/magazine-title.html

As well as these I also used, bubbl.us, polljunkie, glogster, evernote, authorstream, and I also made my own online barcode for the cover of my magazine.

I then used iMovie to make a video where I have inserted pictures and some recordings of me speaking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdA60FHzGZc 

Evaluation Question 3

 The lad mags magazines and music magazine industry have their circulation figures dropping at a rapid pace year on year. The music magazine industry is a tough place to be due to the proliferation of titles (this one of the reasons to why lads mags began to close) with so many similar titles offering the same content. Also in the digital era, it is free to go on the internet to find the information offered by magazines such as tour dates.

With Q magazine (published by Bauer Media Group), it is now currently the worst performer in the industry with 20% sales decline each year. This personally puts me off going with this publisher because if a well known magazine is failing, it makes me worry to how successful my magazine will be with getting off the ground. Despite this one magazine dropping in figures, other magazines of which are produced by Bauer such as Kerrang! has a steady downfall rate of 4%, this is worrying but with all the technology at peoples fingertips it's to be expected. The fact that another Bauer published magazine MoJo is doing fair better with only losing 2.4% off their circulation figures gives me the idea that this magazine has something about it that keeps readers interested; this may be the content or the style/genre of music it offers.

Within IPC Media, NME is also suffering heavy losses with its circulation figures being down 13% year on year. This brings wonder to why Loaded would be planning to launch a new weekly women's title in 2013. Their justification to the matter is that it will not have the content of which causes the proliferation of titles. It also argues that it fits the gap in the market by offering content which isn't similar to Heat (celeb obsessed), an iPhone version and by having its target audience being 18-25 year olds. This magazine gives me confidence that my music magazine could be launched successfully. 

Pages Edited into Final Pieces

This is my front cover of which I received my feedback on therefore I worked with it in order to get a better cover:

 

This is my cover during the cover construction process. I feel that I need to add some design elements:

I feel that this layout didn't work and that there was too much white space therefore I edited this by adding new coverlines which included both music and other lifestyle issues and changing them around.

This is my contents page of which I received feedback on; I have edited accordingly:

From my feedback I edited the contents but I still feel that I need to get rid of the white space:

This is the DPS in which I got my feedback on:

 

Taking the feedback into consideration I edited it to this. The bottom photo is my final DPS. 

Original Photos

Cover:

Contents:

 

Double Page Spread:

Evaluation Question 2

DPS Construction

I started by placing my text into InDesign, I found that even by placing the text all the way across the two pages that there was still too much text in 12pt size font. From my research I found that the font size was approximately in 12pt; this is a good size because it is readable yet not too big which would mean that it would take up a large percentage of the space.

Therefore, I had to be selective and delete some questions; I decided on the favourite country and Justin Bieber scandal. I also changed the font to 9pt, I hoped this would still be readable. I used my research into contents pages where Kerrang! used 8pt size font on the contents page and this was still clear and readable.

I added colour to the questions to make it easier for the reader to distinguish between the question and answer. I also added in the text and shapes that are being used for the title. In order to change the colour, I made use of the colour swatch tool. I got my idea for the title to be three catchy words in different coloured boxes from my research into Top of the Pops magazine. 

I added in a page number and website to fill in the space with the bottom of the page. In order to determine the page number I had to refer back to my contents page. I also added in two pull quotes but because of this despite me editing some text out, the space that one pull quote took led to the text overspilling into a fourth column.

The pull quote of which was is in yellow was made by using the text wrap tool. 

In order to determine where I should place my second pull quote I would have to place in the picture so I could avoid overlapping it. Another thing I had to take into consideration was that the pull quote had to be near where it was written in the text. When I firstly placed in the image it was extremely large therefore I had to resize it but keep its quality but holding command and shift whilst dragging the edges in. With this being my final edit version, due to the picture looking better full length rather than cropping it to be a medium shot, it didn't take up the space of a whole page therefore I decided to keep it on half of the page but add another column of text.

After recieving feedback I decided to add in a small introduction so that I could use drops cap, I removed the pull quote and the website because they looked too random. Now the problem I face is the white space at the top of the page of which I am struggling to feel because if I moved the title over it would be bent in half. 

Evaluation Question 1

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

Title:
I decided to title my magazine 'Download' which is a term commonly associated with music as nowadays many people use the internet to download music such as iTunes. I felt that the word 'download' would be easy to associate with music especially as there is currently a rock festival called 'Download Festival'. Even though it is not specifically a music term, it is similar to 'Kerrang' which is the sound made by an electric guitar when playing a power chord; this allows people to make links to the genre of the magazine.  Another magazine on the market is titled 'Rocksound' which basically means the sound of rock. By titling the magazine that it is very easy for people to be able to classify which genre it belongs to. 'Top of the Pops' and 'We <3 Pop' magazine feature the word 'pop' making it obvious which genre is the main feature of the magazine. The issue with my magazine title is that you are able to download any genre of music, making it hard to distinguish a particular type which means that it could arguably be too broad. However, this issue happens with 'NME' which stands for 'New Music Express' which doesn't classify a particular genre, it just covers new music in general. A main aim of my magazine title was to make it memorable, as a well known word which isn't a every day word but is known by every body I am pleased with the title. Overall, I feel that my choice of title was successful as there was a range of possible conventions to use and I did use one to ensure my magazine would be believable in the magazine industry. 


                                                                                  The title of my media product has used the conventions from 'Kerrang!' magazine by having the title crossing the whole of the width of the magazine. As well as this, they both contain design elements which give a slight effect however they are not too overpowering making them unreadable. 'Blender' and 'Rocksound' (see images below) also do this, showing it to be a well known and liked technique. Furthermore I used a sans serif font which is more casual than a serif font showing the target market to be more middle/working class and be relaxed rather than people who are rich and want elegance. This could also imply that the target market are young adults because they worry about being relaxed more than being elegant. I feel that the look of my title went well because it looks similar to Kerrang! of which is a successful well known magazine which has the features to attract the correct market. When choosing this font I used the default selection of Photoshop fonts as well as looking on http://www.dafont.com  which contains a library of all different types of fonts.


There are a range of magazines on the market of which fulfil the convention of having the title covering the width. Therefore, I feel that the positioning of my title was suitable and went well. 

Mise-en-scène of images:

The setting of my image for the front cover is taken internally as a studio shot. By doing this I was able to instruct my model to do a variety of poses until I found this particular one. This gave me a larger amount of good quality images to look through in order to find an appropriate one.  I feel this was a good choice to make because it would be hard to capture a good clear image where the model looks good if I took it whilst they were preforming. My model is a 17 year old girl, because of this I had to base my magazine around her so that it fit her e.g. I wouldn't be able to do a divorce story with her because it would be hard to believe. As well as this I didn't want someone who looks like they are 12 to be on the cover because it will put the older teens off because they want someone to look up to who is a similar age so they can relate to them. With this model successfully looking in the age range of at least 16, I was able to do a upcoming star of her story of rising to fame with her as this would be a believable story as it correlates with real life stars such as Justin Bieber. The model is also clean cut, she is not a grungey character who would appeal to a different target audience to what I was aiming for. The costume of my model is a plain selection of clothes which cannot exactly classify her into a group in society. However she looks like a sweet pretty girl who would not fit into the emo scene; this effect has also been created due to her friendly and welcoming pose. I feel the use of a pink top brings out her girly side which could make her be viewed as a pop princess. The dress code looks quite party but nothing too extravagant. The editing of the image has been attempted to be done so that it looks more natural rather than over edited. I hardly made any major adjustments to the image, only changing things like the brightness to make it stand out more. I feel that I have made the image look professional. An important factor to notice is that there have been no props used, there have even been no accessories e.g. a hair flower and sunglasses. Overall, I decided to do all these things as I felt they corresponded with my previous research that I carried out on existing media. I felt that I have met the criteria as the image (which has been barely edited) is a studio shot, the artists are young and the girls on the cover look either smart casual or party in their outfit. 

These are the two images of which have been used on my contents page: 

The image on the left is a studio shot of which has been taken externally. This photo was a last minute photo therefore I wasn't able to dictate which costume I wanted. Therefore the costume used here is a casual look which mixes up the dress code of which I've used on the other pages of my magazines. For this photo there is a different setting for where the photo was taken, which challenges the other images which have been taken against a plain wall. This photo being taken externally meant that the lighting would depend on the time of day. I took this photo at night when it was dark therefore I had the artificial lighting of street lamps which I could not control. The pose here is relaxed with the tilt of the blonde model giving the relaxed effect as she is not standing square. I personally don't really like this photo as I think it looks amateur making this photo a bad choice; this is one of my weaknesses of my magazines overall look.

The photo on the right was originally planned to be used on the cover; this image looks more glam than the other photo. I tried to edit out the shadow in this image however despite me trying it didn't work out so I had to leave it be and hope it wouldn't cause too many issues. The shadow comes from the use of artificial lighting of a standard lightbulb. The pose consists of a subtle smile and a confident action as she looks stern and high by holding her hip, however by the other arm being free it makes it look more relaxed. Once again no props have been used on either images. I feel that this image works well and looks good however I question whether or not it is a suitable choice for a contents page and whether it would belong on the cover.

The photo used for my DPS: 

It consists of the same outfit which was used on the cover which makes the model recognisable to readers. However to make it different from the cover, the hairstyle has been changed and the prop of vibrant, sparkly flowers has been added; making it more interesting. It could be argued that the flowers are an unnecessary and irreverent prop. I do agree with that point however I still thinks it works well for the photo despite it being inappropriate for a music magazine. In the Justin Bieber DPS (see below) the prop of a chair is used which challenges the conventions where usually the model is standing up. The fact that both the model is smiling with both her arms being in use and a knee being bent gives a welcoming causal feel. I think that this pose worked well especially as her conventional direct looking at the camera enhances her strong gaze. From my research I noticed that some images were full length (making it a long shot) and others were more of a medium shot; this gave me a wide choice of which pose to use with no specific guidelines. As this photo was taken in my lounge, I included the skirting board and some of my sofa in the photo therefore leaving me with the challenge of cropping that out. I thought that the photo would look better if it was cut out and left on a white background, therefore I done this using Photoshop. This task was a challenge as there were awkward parts to cut out but I kept with this idea as it fulfilled the conventions of music magazines where the images had been cut out/ taken on a white plain background. 

Written content:
Whilst researching into the language used by music magazines I noticed that different genres need different mode of address. This is due to their target audience society group and their age; for example TOTP is a young teenager magazine therefore the language will have to be child friendly yet it can include slang as these are the people who are likely to abbreviate words e.g. 'you' to 'u'.  A magazine of which is the complete opposite to this is Kerrang! which is a rock magazine which includes artists who are adults meaning that they openly use profanities and the readers will not get offended by them; also their parents have no say in what type of language they use. Overall, across the board of music magazines I can see that the standard mode of address is to include a colloquial tone. I feel that I have successfully managed to do this. Another convention of pop magazines is to use friendly language; this tone will draw readers in, I have a strong example of this in my editor's letter which is situated on my contents page. Due to the younger age range of my target market, I had to make sure that the language was easy to read so that readers could understand it; this meant using simplistic words however I had to get in the balance that it was easy yet interesting and not boring. The use of direct address is also an important key in making the reader feel involved as it makes them feel special that the magazine is speaking specifically to them. I have done this in my strap line of 'your weekly music download' making it seem like the creators of the magazine have gone to all the effort of making this magazine for the benefit and enjoyment of one reader. 
For my double page spread, I had to write the article as if it was coming from the view of the model on the page. This meant I had to look at they general vibe and from that write something that would be believable from her. I used the the stereotype that she is a girl wearing pink therefore she is a girly girl who is friendly and sweet. As well as putting myself in the mind of 'Shona', I also had the role of being an interviewer. I wanted to give the effect that the interviewer was a friendly character who treated the interviewee like a friend. This would make the interviewee feel comfortable and happy to open up; making them feel like that they weren't being exposed during the interview. Furthermore, the informal nature of the interview has the aim that it won't necessarily feel like an interview and more of a casual chat with a friend. 

Front cover:

As this was the first part of my magazine that I made, I had to bear in the mind that the colour scheme I used would be an important factor of the house style. The main colours that I used are white, black, pink and yellow; I feel that this was a good choice because these colours work well together. I feel that white, black and yellow are all colours which could be representative of either gender whereas the use of pink represents girls because this is stereotypically a girls favourite colour. I originally had the background red of which wasn't a convention of magazines so therefore I changed it to white to make it both conventional and to look better. In addition to the colour scheme, the overall look of the cover would play a part in the house style. I followed the conventional layout of being ordered by having my layout looking neat and tidy, by doing this it would make the cover lines much easier to read than if it was messy. I also had to consider how much white space that I would use, I had to get the balance of it not being too empty but not too crammed yet still with sufficient cover lines.  On the cover, the title was the largest piece of text because it is the most important as it needs to stand out so when people are browsing they can easily pick out the magazine. The larger the font is, the more important it is as it is the most eye catching and noticeable. Therefore the more interesting teasers will be bigger and bolder in attempt to draw peoples attention in. The main cover line consists of 'Shona' being in the largest font because this is the part of the line which will attract the audience, when they see the mention of her name they will want to read on. An issue I faced was trying not to cover up too much of the image of the model because otherwise it would look less important and the text would take the role of dominating the page. Therefore I made a mixture of the text overlap the image and some go around the image. My front cover only consists of having one image on the front whereas existing media products contain many more; these don't necessarily have to be of people, they could be of clothes that are featured. 

My strap line which would be featured on each issue is 'your weekly music download' I think that this simplistic line works because it gives the main idea of the magazine in four words. 'Top of the Pops' strap line is 'More gossip! More scandal! More you!' I feel that this title is irreverent to the music scene which is why I crafted my strap line around music. I found that TOTP magazine often has its strap line overlapped by the celebrity's head making it hard to read what it says. I felt that this idea would not work well because it made the strap line unreadable. 

I added a barcode onto my magazine as I felt that it made it look more legitimate, the issue I had with this was with the positioning. From my research I found that the barcodes tended to be situated at the bottom of the page; I also noticed that it didn't have to be portrait, it could also be landscape. As the bar code is not a very nice looking/appealing feature I wanted it to make it look discrete and try to blend it in so that it didn't look out of place. I think that I have managed to blend it in with the use of my colour scheme containing black and white; I also can't see a better place where it could fit in. Here are some examples of covers which I have used in order to get some inspiration so I could follow the conventions. I feel that I have used a wide range of conventions therefore making my magazine fit in well with the genre. 

 

Contents page:

To enhance the house style I made sure that I followed the colour scheme by having a conventional white background with pink, black and yellow included as well as some text in red which is taken from the background of the cover. The layout of the contents would have to be neat and ordered in order to follow the house style from the cover, of which it does. I like the use of boxes where the categories of the contents are, I have also used boxes on the cover. By putting the information in boxes it makes the page easy to navigate and people can easily skim quickly through the articles that they are interested in. In these boxes I made the actual described content to be short and snappy so that people get the jist of the article without giving all the article away. I am happy with the outcome of the overall general layout because I feel that it looks suitable to be a professional contents page. Also I made the page numbers of the content in a different colour and larger font to make it stand out and be seen more clearly. A convention from pop magazines that I have used is the fun design elements, the various shapes make the page look more creative and interesting. However I feel wary about these incase they look too childish and inappropriate. The editor's letter is signed off with the conventional handwritten font so it looks more personal. The use of the 'x' (a kiss) makes the reader feel welcomed by this friendly gesture. The use of bold highlights the importance of the readers and the strong welcome to the magazine they receive. Despite me using two images on the contents; in TOTP there are always at least 4, these aren't always people, they can be accessories. 

Compared to Top of the Pops magazine the similarities that I have which make my magazine look like a conventional pop magazine is the fact that the page is clearly labelled as a contents page. Another convention is the content being organised into labelled boxes of which are al the same colour with the page numbers being in a different colour to the short and snappy content. I used the technique of making the important page numbers being in a larger font therefore showing its importance. Furthermore both contents pages include a white background; I feel that this gives it a sophisticated look. I feel happy that I have successfully used enough conventions in my media product to make it look like it fits in with the current market. However, on my product I did not include the small detail of a page number. I included a editor's letter which is not in this magazine.

Compared to We Love Pop magazine, the similarities I have are that I have included an editor's letter which is signed off in a handwritten font with a kiss to end it off. I have included the convention of making the page numbers larger to make them stand out and be seen more easily. Furthermore, I have used design elements similar to those used on this page to advertise 'hot posters'. This magazine uses a different layout as there is only one box of content whereas the other content is displayed by the use of an image; there are 16 images in total. I do not like this layout as I feel that it doesn't look like a contents page whereas I feel that my media product is easily recognisable as a contents page. 

Double page spread:

I continued the house style onto my DPS by having the colour scheme to include white, black, pink and yellow. I followed the conventions by including pull quotes which were situated near to where I got the quote from. I used the text wrap tool in order to get the columns to wrap round my pull quote. I used the conventional white background and had the questions in a different colour to the answers to that they could be easily recognisable. In addition, I included page numbers and the magazines website so that people would know which magazine they were reading. Another convention that I used was the invisible margin which enables the page to look more spacious and not so crammed. I used my research in TOTP magazine in order to determine a set layout. Personally I feel that my DPS is my best and favourite part of the magazine because it looks more professional and elegant than the rest. I like the layout of the page, including the use of columns going across both pages of which I got inspiration from looking at this existing double page spread:

From this existing DPS article, I got the idea of having the main image on the second page but right next to where it would be cut in half. I tried and liked this idea, however I decided to keep it to the side.