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

The magazines I looked at for inspiration were from the same genre as my media product. It was therefore easier to see genre-specific conventions and helped me to develop ideas on how to change and challenge those conventions in order to make my magazine stand out without appearing to be from a different genre. I also took ideas from pop magazines for the basis of my colour scheme; I found that they conventionally used bright colours but also stuck to the idea of a 3 colour pallet. This gave me inspiration to create a 3 colour pallet to reflect those conventionally related to pop genre magazines. I also looked at fashion magazines such as Cosmopolitan, which has a similar audience to the one I intend to market my magazine for, they also regularly feature many of the celebrities that I have taken inspiration from. After researching this my colour pallet was easy to choose as I wanted to incorporate black and white to give the magazine a bold, clean and clear look with one main colour to emphasis the magazines key features. After seeing that music magazines commonly use black and white in their colour pallets with the final colour being a bold colour such as red; I decided that I wanted to steer away from red to keep my magazine looking vibrant but still wanted a bold, impact colour similar to this; I therefore decided to use orange as my third colour, because I felt it had the right feel and wasn t commonly used in pop magazines so would help to make my magazine stand out. When creating my media products, my ideas on the use and challenges of conventions where heavily influenced by the examples I evaluated. For my cover I have decided to use the rule of thirds, as this is the most common layout format used for magazines, especially music related ones such as Billboard, as the layout helps you to clearly portray your masthead, ideas and themes. Also when taking into consideration the way in which magazines are presented in shops, the majority of magazines only have the top third on show to shoppers; therefore, putting the masthead in this third allows your magazine to be quickly recognised, to help increase the likelihood of sales. However, I also took the bottom two thirds of my page to play with conventions, as I feel this helps to make it look unique and different. I split this section into two halves; one created for the main image and one for the cover lines. I think the way I have done this gives the cover a slick, clean and fresh appearance.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My media product is aimed at the social group of townies and the sub-group trendies as this is a large and quite mainstream social group which I feel matches the large and broad genre of music that I m focusing on. Pop music is also most popular amongst this group. The artists I have chosen to base my cover artist on reflect the style and music preferences of the social groups I am aiming my product at. The artists I am basing my magazine on are powerful female musical influences such as Beyonc, Adele, Lady Gaga and Jessie J. Reflecting these artists styles will mean that my cover artist will be wearing on trend clothing, bright colours and statement elements. The miseen-scene within the photos I use will imply the range of talents the artist has; such as music writing, dancing or playing an instrument as well as singing. I created an artist profile to explain this; my cover artist is Sapphire; a 20 year old, talented pop singer with an individual style and unique voice. Her main influences are Jessie J and Lady Gaga; who inspire her style and fashion sense. She also takes inspiration from her idols; Beyonc, Adele and Nicki Minaj; strong willed and independent female artists who have many talents and dance and write music as well as singing. She got into pop music at a young age and has always been a fan of strong female artists such as Rihanna, Britney Spears, Beyonc and Pink. She grew up in the midlands, in a nice house with her parents, two sisters and their dog, Bruno. She went to a local schools and left high school having achieved 10 GCSE's, 2 As Levels and 3 A-levels. She went to De Montfort University to study fine art; but left in her 3rd year after being scouted at a local talent competition, which lead to Sapphire getting signed by a top music production company in London. She now lives in central London.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? # The institution I would like to use to distribute my magazine would be a large and well established company such as Prometheus Global Media who publish magazines like Billboard. Having a well established publisher will show that my magazine is of equal quality to those that the company also publish helping to attract new readers and fans of those magazines as a wider secondary audience. Prometheus Global Media publish Billboard, a pop magazine from which i have taken a lot of inspiration. I therefore think my magazine would fit in with their other publications. However, i also think my magazine would stand out and give them good sales as it is more focused on a female audience and fashion elements, as many of their other magazines do not. Prometheus Global Media is and American Entertainment publishing company based in New York. Using a well-established American publisher would help to widen the audience as it has a wider distribution.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? The main audience for my media product would be predominately females from the 15 to 30 age range. I have chosen this audience as I think they will best relate to the music and artists mentioned within the magazine. This audience are also most likely to be trendies or townies ; the main social groups that I am aiming my magazine at. My magazine will be aimed at a target audience of mainstream pop fans. I want my magazine to have a broad cover of music genres for those who have a broader music taste and don't stick to a specific genre as I think there are very little magazines which cater for this. However, I also want to keep my magazine mainstream to ensure a broader audience and to incorporate chart influences. An audience of mainstream music fans will also allow me to take inspiration for my model from wellknown singers and bands; my inspiration for genre and target audience from Billboard and Rolling Stone, which both also keep to quite mainstream, pop and chart music but do also incorporate other artists and genres occasionally.

5. How did you attract/address your audience? I aim to attract my audience mainly through the use of visual references to artists from the genre which my audience would admire. Using heavy references to these artists will help to attract them through admiration and an interest for those artists. Having a strong feel for on trend fashion through the magazine will also help to attract fashion fans as a wider audience as well as those who admire the style of their favourite artists.