Question 5 Notes

• Front cover doesn't have any mode of address
• To attract the audience I used buzz words
• The colour scheme appeals more to females
• The main image is of a young popular pop artist
• The price is £1.99
• Well known pop musician names are on the front as well
• Contents uses the word our to include the reader
• Direct address is used to make it feel personal to the reader
• Social media
• less text on the contents compared to usual magazines
• More famous pop musicians
• Young famous pop musician is the main article
• Appealing colours
• Easy to read
• Informal
• Pull line uses young teen slang.

Question 4 notes

• Teenage girls
• Aged 12-14
• Middle class - magazine is cheap but for a teenage girl (who probably has little money) to buy it, it is affordable for middle class.
• Interests - pop music, boy bands, fashion, cute celebrities, gossip, role models etc
• Favourite musicians - One Direction, Justin Bieber, The Vamps, 5SOS, Meghan Trainor, Taylor Swift, Jessie J, G.R.L
• Reference - smash hits target audience is for those who like teen pop like mine. Teen pop is defined by a sub genre of pop made for 10-19 year olds. The lyrics usually involve romance, love, relationships or emotional factors.

Question 3 notes

• IPC have NME
• BBC own Top of the Pops
• No company would own two of the same genre and sub-genre magazine
• Bauer media don't own a pop magazine

Question 1 notes - Challenging Conventions

Front Cover

• The use of centralised text. This looks more appealing to a younger audience.
• The main image doesn't include an instrument because he is famous and everyone will know him and associate him with pop music without the inclusion of a guitar
• I have only used a banner for a header and not a footer. The header had enough room for the stories I wanted featured on the front.
• I have put my barcode on the front cover in the lower left corner. On the magazines I have looked at, they either don't have a barcode on the front or have it on the left on the cover. Mine is on the lower right corner because it is not an attraction to the magazine like the rest of the cover features. I wanted it on the front so the price can be seen without the trouble of looking for it because I have the price and issue date next to the barcode.
• I used inverted colours on one of the cover line bubbles to make it stand out.

Contents Page

• I have used text on an angle to make it stand out and look more appealing to a younger audience. (The angles text look more immature)
• I have used the logo on the top of the contents page as well.
• I have used uppercase letters to make certain buzz words to stand out and look more appealing to a younger audience.
• My image interacts with the text e.g. Leon is 'leaning' of the contents box.
• I have my small print for the magazine on the contents page rather than using a separate page for all of the small print. I used it to fill the space and give a little information about the magazine without having to go find a page to get the information.
• This is the same reason the social media names are on the contents page.

Double Page Spread

• I have three columns for the text on the page. A lot of magazines only have two.
• Each question in the Q&A has a separate colour for a different category per question. I separated it into colour coded categories to make it looks more colour and appealing and so younger viewers can just skip to a question they find more readable and interesting.
• The image I used took up a whole page or there about to make the article look more a appealing. Also younger audiences look at the images more than reading so the image takes a whole page and there is slightly less writing to read.
• I made a logo for the Q&A page which most magazines don't have but I thought it would look more appealing to younger audiences if each page had a logo to represent the kind of article that was on it.
• There is a quote in the corner that I found in only one magazine but I liked it and it made the page look more personalised from the artists point of view.

Question 2 Notes

• colour scheme - bright and bold - younger audience
• price - £1.99 affordable by younger audience
• images - attractive models - appeal to females
• coverlines - other pop musicians, both real and fake - pop fans
• posters - real pop musicians - pop fans
• article - logo, key, q&a, quote, simply worded - younger audience and feminine
• font size and style - san serif and slightly bigger than usual - younger audience
• layout - less formal,  text on an angle, no blank spaces - younger audience
• social media - younger audience

aged 11-15 

85% girls

Finishing The Double Page Spread

I have made my final changes to my double page spread by adding a logo in the top right side of the left page and by changing the background in the mirror to a dressing room. I found the dressing room background in a copy of top of the pops so I decided to use the idea rather than just using a grey background for a mirror. This looks a little more realistic and believable than just a grey gradient. The logo i decided to add myself with no references because I thought my magazine can have a logo for each article type like interviews, reviews etc.

Slight Adjustments to the Front Cover

I made Sophie a little bigger on the front cover to fill the space and look more appealing. Although the main image is what mostly attracts the eye, she is still a selling point so I made the image bigger to stand out a little more. It also filled an unwanted gap that I had on the Cover. 

Contents Page Adjustments

I made Leon bigger to fill a small space that I didn't like that was originally above his head. Doing so however made the guitar neck go behind the 'on the cover' contents. I added a white border around all of the text to then make it readable. This also made the 'on the cover' contents stand out more which I wanted to have happen because these are the more important and popular stories for the magazine to have. The text is also centralised for the same reason; To make it stand out.

Finished Text in Article

I have finished writing the article on my double page spread. Each question is colour coded and had the little logo from the key to give each question a category. It is nicely separated into three columns at a readable font size.

Contents page update

I have now mostly finished my contents page. Since last time, I have changed the font sizes to make it more appropriate and realistic, finished the text and readjusted the layout a little. I have also added the small print about Bauer media in the lower left corner but I still think the space on the left is a little too plain for a pop magazine so I may add more later.

Contents Stories

I have used real pop bands and artists in my contents to fill up space with other stories in the magazine. I had the text under the sub headings rather than next to them for a more easily understandable layout. I had the numbers before the articles titles and had the titles a different colour with a bold font. This is to show the clear difference between the information about the title and the title itself.

Small print

I decided to have small print about Bauer Media and problems with the website information on my contents page. On some magazines  have looked at, there is a page dedicated to the writers and the audiences help for contacts. Because I had space on my contents page, I decided to have the small print there. 

Front Cover (up to date)

I have mostly finished my front cover now after tweaking it a lot since I last thought I had finished it. The main things I have done are adding more images, tweaking the layout, adding a banner and readjusting the text and images. I am happy with this cover now because it looks a lot more cluttered like an actual pop magazine, it had bright colours to draw the attention in and the photos were trendy and appealing to the audience.

Images on the front covers

On the top of the pops magazine I was referencing to, there were plenty of images on the front cover so I decided to add one more image to my front cover. Now there is a main image, 2 smaller images of the other pop musicians and the 3 posters. The 2 smaller images have the 3D effect by having the images stick out of the boxes that they are referred to.

Posters

I have used real posters on the front cover of my magazine to promote the free posters that are inside the magazine and to emphasise that it is a pop music magazine by using pop musicians on the posters. On a Kerrang magazine I used as a reference, it had a preview of the posters inside which is why I decided to do so. 

Final Image for the Front Cover

I have taken the final photos that I wanted to use on the front cover to fill the space. I had him lean over a chair so I could crop him out and have him now leaning on one of the cover line bubbles. I had him wear my Pokemon hat so that he could appeal to the currently trending game. It also shows that although he is a pop star, he is still a 'normal' person  by liking the same things. Pokemon is currently trending so it sows the magazine is up to date with modern trends and also appeals to ages 14-17 like I want because that is the main audience for the game and my magazine.