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Masthead- Mise en Scene The title of my magazine is ‘Ascent’, I used Kerrang as inspiration as it had a direct connotation to a rustic feel which I believe would work well on my own magazine.. I chose the name ‘Ascent’ as it creates a sense of superiority and privilege. I also combined wings to the ‘A’ to give the impression that this magazine can take you places, superior to its competitors. My magazines masthead typography is bold and distorted; I have challenged and developed that convention in making mine like this instead of smooth and sophisticated, I believe this gives my magazine a unique style that will distinguish its appearance from other dominant magazines. The rustic look follows in the footsteps of the magazine 'Kerrang', with its worn effect, and has taken damage.

The colours used by my masthead are conventional; I have used a block colour of red and reinforced its borders with a white outline.I havent seen this style used conventionally throughout my research and I believe that in using it myself I have challenged the codes and conventions set by successful magazines. The positioning of my masthead follows conventions set by real media products. I have made my masthead fill the entire top of the page. With a few exceptions. I have also included my slogun on the masthead. the phrase 'witness the evolution' helps support and emphasise the domination and superiority of the magazine amongst others.

Cover lines- Mise en Scene My front pages cover lines use and develop form and conventions set by real media products. By convention, In Kerrang and NME cover lines are a jumble of colour, font and size. I have taken this into account and used the idea when creating my own cover lines. I decided I wanted to stick to the theme of only using red black and white in my cover lines. My largest cover line situated in the bottom right of the cover underneath the main image so the reader can familiarise the character with the storyline. I have used the convention of mixing fonts to create a more professional look to my cover. The majority of my cover lines are in the fonts ‘impact’, ’28 days later’ and ‘Edwardian script’; fonts that I believe to be different to fonts I have seen in real media cover lines.

The variation in size in my cover lines is another convention I have researched and used. I have, like on many professional covers, used a variation and mix of size for individual words in my cover lines. The more important words are larger, to make them more eye catching. In coalition with the size differences, I have also used colour to help place emphasis of particular words. The cover lines are scattered all around the image to make the front cover look untidy, which I was aiming for as this theme is different from the other magazines, helping ‘Ascent’ stand out.

Layout and Colour- Mise en Scene I have used a colour theme in my magazine. Conventionally, nearly all magazine covers use their own individual theme. I have used red in my magazine, as it seems to be a common form used by many real products.For my magazines background I have used a black, gray and white gradient. This is something I have seen many real products do to give their covers a more professional and appealing look. In designing my main layout for my magazine, I used researched conventions to help me. I placed the picture in the middle, surrounded it with cover lines and placed the masthead over the full width of the page at the top, with a skyline above it. The skyline was present in every magazine issue I researched, which displayed relevant music information to the issue or headings that promoted the magazine. I liked this idea a lot and used this for my own product, a similar layout form being used the NME issue below.

The use of a central character was a main finding in my research, as it offered the base of the magazine, allowing other aspects to be created around it. I therefore used this, but changed it to suit the pose of my own character and to help my magazine look authentic. Another point was the layout of the main cover line, which I placed in the bottom right corner below the image . This allowed an emphasis to be on the face of the main character but kept the heading central and bold. This was by far the largest cover line and including the image was what I worked around when constructing the other headings for my magazine,

The Image- Mise en Scene The people of a magazine are extremely important to create an interesting feature in the media product. I on the appearance and pose of Lily Allen from NME. My picture uses, develops and challenges conventional pictures in music magazines.The Picture its self has followed conventions set by real products. I have used a young female model. Large, bold fonts are used to introduce the character to the audience, making them the centre of attention. Also, the font and colour had to reflect the personality of each character. From the addition of NME the black and white used in the main cover line look as if they have been taken from Lily Allen's black hair and pale face. On my magazine I focused on taken the red and black aspects from the image of Isabella to form my cover.

The Mise en Scene of the main image used in my magazine, was made up of many qualities found in NME (Lily Allen edition). NME used a photoshoot styled background, by using a blank white setting with no obvious use of gradients. I actually did develop my image by giving it a drop shadow and gradient as I fell that plain white would not have made the image stand out as much. I had already decided to use a woman. I chose to use Isabella because of her very obvious fashion sense, wearing eccentric clothing which makes her stand out. Thereby, I dressed her in what may be viewed as a recognisable set of clothing, but taking the aspect of tartan for Lily Allen's top to make it more unique.
The size and positioning of my picture follows conventions I have seen throughout my research. I have used a shot from the waist up, and placed the picture directly in the centre. I believe that Isabella leaning in the picture makes the front cover differ from the normal conventions of a magazine, challenging the more obvious style. I believe it gives my cover a greater sense of compatibility with the audience. The facial expression is unreadable, looking directly at the audience gives the reader a sense of intrigue, what is the meaning behind that look?

Contents page- The next part of my the magazine I had to create was the contents page. One of the first things that I noticed when looking Q magazine's contents pages is that it has the masthead at the top of the page, usually accompanied by something like: In this issue, This week, This month etc.. I did incorporate my masthead on the contents page, but not in the conventional place. The Q contents has included a index down the side of the page, an idea that I find to be extremly useful to the reader as it tells them alphabetically, at a glance, who will be in this issue so they can easily search down the list and see if there favourite artist/band is there.
Q magazines contents has used different headings to separate the articles in terms of news, features, reviews etc. which I have done on my contents page by use of boxed text deviding the gneres.

Double page spread- On this double page spread that I was looking at I saw that the header, or the biggest bit of text on the page, is a quote from the interview below. This gives the reader a taste of what is to come in the article, and helps them make up their mind about whether to read the article or not. I have used this element in my double page spread by having my header as "FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BRAVE" II I think you would want to read on and know what Isabella's fortune was. I have also followed the layout of the kerrang dps; incorporating the 'NEWS' coverline and also the smaller photgraphs supporting the main image.

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