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

By Kofi Abedi-Boafo

I believe my magazine does look like a real magazine as I used a lot of conventions of magazine covers and analysed a lot of real covers to ensure that my work looked as professional as possible, here were some of my inspirations when making my magazine cover. I done the same for my double page spread

and contents page

My Masthead

Inspirations

My Magazine Inspirations

My Contents Page Main Inspiration:

My Double page spread Inspirations

Front cover conventionsHere I used three major features of this XXL magazine. I placed the masthead at the top left of the cover rather than in the centre, this is just a creative way of presenting this; I also put the main image slightly in front of the masthead to show importance and status. I also copied the feature list as a sell line and the headline being the rappers name, to try and grab the audiences attention. I changed it a little bit as I used a pulled quote as my strapline and the XXL magazine used a punchline

• I think you can tell straight away that my magazine is a hip hop magazine and this is because of the attire that my model is wearing. He is wearing all black, a black tee shirt, sunglasses and a black cap, he is also wearing the cap backwards which is seen by some older individuals as the wrong way to wear a cap. He is also wearing a gold watch, which is a stereotypical piece of attire for rappers. Also my magazine cover features the names of a few big hip hop artists e.g Jay Z and Nas therefore the reader will know which genre it is as soon as they pick up my magazine. I also showed the confidence by putting my main image of the rapper slightly in front of my masthead to show power and status.

• Most rappers are cocky and confident and I tried to convey this message throughout my task. On my front page my model (the rapper) is posing in a cheeky way with one finger to the camera as if to say ‘Hold on’ and what he is doing (checking the time) is more important than the picture. I also put a pulled quote on the front cover saying ‘I’m better than Kanye’ which is my rapper saying that he is better than an established, top selling rapper named Kanye West; this is the attitude of most hip hop rappers nowadays.