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

In my music magazine I have followed the codes and conventions of other magazines. I have also developed some of the codes to make it more appealing to my demographic which is the mode of address of my magazine. Codes and conventions in magazines include things like the main image, banner and featured stories; I have developed and altered the forms of magazines to create a specific magazine design which appeals to my target audience. Some of the conventions I used in my magazine are that I placed featured stories and articles in my magazine on top banner. Most magazines follow this form to keep the layout of the magazine simpler to navigate.

I have used my signs and symbols in my magazine to help me construct and convey that my magazine is masculine like the size of my masthead and words I used to appeal to my demographic semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and the sign system. In my contents page I have used the ‘play’ symbol on my featured stories this is sign and its becomes  an iconic symbol this  helps me convey that not only does it mean play but its shows what’s next and what’s coming up in the future.

The masthead design of my music magazine is similar to the XXL music magazine, XXL music magazine audience like Hip hop and rap. This helps me convey the message to my audience that Pixel beat is also a hip hop magazine. My magazine is a formulaic cover. It has most of the traditional looks of music magazine, the main colour scheme is red,black and white which is used a lot in hip hop and rap magazines. The name Mr Grillz is a common artist name in the Hip-hop and rap genre, but he is wearing a suit which challenges the codes and conventions of rap artist. The image of rappers is all about doing bad things and having lots money; my magazine is contradicting this idea and is creating a new image for young rappers. The typography for my magazine is big and it’s in blocks, you can see that this magazine is for males because it’s so powerful and dominate, the next biggest font is the main featured story which is also in big and in blocks, and this also helps to reinforce that it’s a masculine and for males.

My magazine colour scheme stays the same through the pages and they are red, white and black. They are all masculine colours. Red has the connotations of power and strength, black has the connotations of mystery and power.  The camera angle for my magazine front cover image is a big close up which shows his emotion and facial features, he is also looking directly at the camera which looks like he is speaking directly to the audience. The audience can personally identify him and empathize with him. The eye colour was changed from brown to red to create a sense of mystery and pain, the featured story of my magazine is called ‘Save me from the demons’ this helps reinforcing the idea of pain and mystery.

 I also have traditional conventions in my magazine and they are placed next to my masthead. They are the issue number and date of the magazine. I also have a barcode which is on the bottom of the magazine page. I wanted to keep the magazine simple so that it’s easier for my audience to use and understand. Within the pages I included subliminal signs and codes which challenge the conventions I placed this in my magazine because it’s additional incentive which helps sell my magazine and the this allows the audience to be subscribed to the website for them to claim their prize and creates synergy as they are using 2 different media platforms to work together.

I placed an aspiring figure in my front cover so that my audience can dream to be like him. Maslow created a pyramid of what all humans need and it’s called ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’ its shows that all human
need food, water and shelter to live, he called that the ‘physiological’ stage. Maslow also said that after having all of that humans need safety and also need to belong somewhere. Humans need to achieve and that’s in the ‘esteem’ stage. The final stage is ‘self-actualization’ all of them humans need to reach their full potential, to reach their full potential humans need dream and aspire. Magazines allow humans to fill that need and even though we have reached our goal humans continue to set harder and more challenging goals which are impossible to reach. Magazines help reach that goal/dream.

My magazine appeals to my audience it helps them by reaching a set closer to their dream, the person I used for the front cover image is going to sell them his lifestyle to the audience. I used a person that my audience look up too and a person that would be able to sell my magazine.

All the typography in my magazine are all capitalized, bold and in blocks, this makes the information look important and worth reading  this makes the audience interested in the magazine and would read the all the articles.

The uses and gratification theory is present in my magazine because it has information which are the featured stories in the hip hop and rap genre, new upcoming rappers, new albums which are coming out, buzz words used in my magazine to help entertain the audience. I also have placed the magazine website, social network sites like twitter and Instagram which help encourage social interaction and exchange where the audience can take pictures of themselves and sent them in so that they could be featured in an article called ‘ Top 10 fans of the month’

I have also used a superstar on the front cover of my magazine which the audience can relate to.