Opinions continued

Double Spread

Other opinions

Front cover

Content page

Advert Analysis

My Perfume advert:

The perfume's name is 'Power' which I thought was perfect for the magazine's audience as the magazine is for young feminists. I have linked the image to the text by using the same colours. The image is of a man and a women, the man is in a suit which shows power, but the woman is in the for ground which suggests that she is the leading one of the couple. The woman's hair is not perfect but she is proud of it which suggests that the perfume will make you more confident in yourself. The advert says that you don't have to be perfect to be powerful. The male is looking side ways, while the girl is looking directly as the audience, this shows that the perfume is for girls and it shows that the woman is so confident she can make eye contact. The guy is good looking, suggesting that the power perfume will give you the confidence to get and be with someone good looking. 'Be the leading lady of your life!' is a comand and it is a link to the chick flick "The Holiday" which is about two women finding their own paths. It is meant to suggest to women that they should do what they want and live life to the full. It links perfectly with the aim of my magazine.

Magazine analysis continued...

 My contents page:

I have decided to keep my contents page simple yet busy. I have done this by having a clear and spacious layout while still including a lot of text and image. I thought that having a main image of a strong famous female (Taylor Swift) would engrave the genre of my magazine into the reader. The image that I have used was taken at a BBC Teen Awards gig that was for under 18's only, this means that almost all of my intended audience could have been there, I wanted to use an authentic image because it suggests to the reader that the photo could have been taken by themselves, and so the magazine is realistic and the reader can really relate to its content. Taylor Swift is doing a power pose which I thought made this image the perfect one for my magazine as that is basically what my magazine is about - Girl Power.

I have used direct address with 'you're invited' to reinforce this connection between the magazine and the reader. I kept the same fonts used on the front cover for the contents page so that there would be a theme and that it would link well. The colours used make it feministic without being too girlie, I chose to do this as my magazine is for women but not young or ultra-girlie girls. All my images are of females, I did this to again say that the magazine is for females and to highlight the fact that males are not the most important aspect of the music business anymore.

I linked the two smaller images with two of the articles mentioned to give the reader an insight into what the magazine is about without having to read. Due to the fact that I want my magazine to be a light, fun read, I have decided not to have too much text and large images. This will help to keep the reader entertained and intrigued as a picture can say a million words.

My double spread page:

I tried to keep my double page within the theme of being easy to read, lots of pictures and the same fonts and colours throughout the page. I decided by having a simple article layout, the content would appear to be interesting as it doesn't look like its a long or tedious read. The images are all of the same girl which shows without having to read the article, who it is about. The images are all fun and friendly -this also suggests that the article will be entertaining to read and that you will get a real insight into Becky Lewis. All the images show her facing the audience, whereas on the front cover she is facing her body away, I did this to suggest to the reader that now that they have baught the magazine, they are allowed to see and read eveything about her. She has faced the audience and is ready to spill her secrets. However, there is a section in the interview where she refuses to tell any more to the VIBE -  I did this to remind to the audience that even with confidence and power, one should always have some privacy about them. I also wanted the audience to realise that Becky is a real person and has certain things she is not willing to share, I wanted my audience to respect that.

I kept the interview chatty and informal as to get a non-guarded response from Becky Lewis. I tried to give the impression that the magazine, Becky Lewis and the reader are all good friends and are just having a general chat. I thought that this was the most effective way of getting the reader involved and interested. I included that Becky was eating biscuits because I wanted it to show girls that eating is cool, Becky is skinny, polite and a super star, I wanted my audience to aspire to be like her, and that includes eating properly. I wanted there to be a subconscious message about annorexia not being neccessary to get power, confidence or fame.

Target Audience

A  typical VIBE reader

Hollie Curry is 17 years old; she is a 6^th former at Knights Templar School in Baldock and is studying Photography, English Language Literature, Art and Psychology. She has a part time job in Dorothy Perkins on a Saturday for 4 hours. She gets paid £20 a week and spends her money mainly on clothes, accessories, magazines and hanging out with friends. She buys magazines such as Kerrang!, Sugar and More.

Hollie is interested in Indie, Pop, Rock and Country music. She especially likes artists such as Christina Aguilera, Paramore and Taylor Swift. Her favourite song at the moment is ‘Mine’ by Taylor Swift but this is liable to change as she listens to new music daily - mainly on BBC Radio One. She is very interested in music and listens to it every day – on the way to school, during homework and whilst hanging out with friends. Her most common form of buying music is through CD’s. Hollie buys music magazines monthly and attends music festivals such as Glastonbury, V, Reading, Strawberry Fair and Rhythms of the world.

Hollie is a very confident girl, who is friendly, fashionable and a bit of a feminist. Her hobbies include photography, creative writing and reading fantasy and romantic novels. She is currently reading ‘Breaking Dawn’ by Stephanie Meyer but her favourite book is ‘The Northern Lights’ by Phillip Pullman. Between her job and 6^th form work, she spends most of her time with family or friends.

My Music Magazine Front Cover

Music Magazine Drafts - Video analysis

Development from draft to final:

I decided to keep the female image, as the magazine is for females and it's meant to be about female artists. The image is of Becky Lewis to highlight the main article feature of the magazine, this helps to attract fans of Becky Lewis, who would therefore buy the magazine.

I chose this close up image of her because it suggests she is confident enough to stand close to a camera, she also has hardly any make up on which reinforces the idea of natural confidence. Becky is also looking directly at the camera, which gives the viewer the impression that they are being targeted individually - this may encourage them to buy the magazine. Her hair covers one eye which suggests that she is hiding something. I did this to suggest to the reader that you have to buy the magazine to reveal her secrets. This encourages light voyeurism, but also presents escapism and the opportunity to learn from others. In our modern day society, most fashion and gossip magazines do this, I have included this aspect into my music magazine as it gives it a bit of originality from all the other music magazines on the market.
I kept the price as red because its connotations mean love, lust and anger. I chose red because it indicated lust for the magazine, love for Becky Lewis and anger of fighting for feministic ideas.
I decided to keep the title, font and colour for the same reasons mentioned in the video above. I changed the background from black and white to a grey; I thought that this could represent the stage between innocence (white) and adulthood (black) as grey is in between white and black on the colour scale.

I wanted Becky to be smiling to suggest that she is friendly and ready to share her secrets inside the magazine. I also have her positioned like this, as it looks like she is facing the content of the magazine but looking over her shoulder to ensnare the reader. I thought that this could suggest to the reader that Becky wants them to follow her into the magazine to find out more.

I have used simple language to portray that the magazine is a light read and just a bit of fun. "Unsigned" and "unmissable" are the longest words that I have used. Due to my intended audience, I thought this approach was probably the best as most 15-21 year olds are in some form of education and so wouldn't want to read something heavy or complicated. They want to take a break from studying and just enjoy themselves, my magazine aims to be the perfect get away.

I have decided to make the heading "BECKY LEWIS - THE REAL DEAL" emphatic because I wanted it to be the main article of the magazine, as mentioned in the video. See later blog post for this article feature.

I decided to keep the price at £2.99 as my research (in blue folder) proved that most people would pay £3 for a magazine happily. As the issue is monthly, I think that this is cheap enough even for students who may have no proper income.

24th November 2010 - VIBE Music magazine.

VIBE is a music magazine for females between the age of 15 and 21. It aims to show how the music business is no longer a male-dominated business and encourages readers to work for their dreams and realise that they can achieve anything. It also aims to be the perfect get away for students who just want to find out whats going on, without doing their own research.

School Magazine Content Page

I decided that a full and busy style would suit the hecktic lives of teenagers who would enjoy this magazine. The colours link to the images as cross-references within the page. I decided to do this, to keep the attention of the reader and to make the content page more vibrant and interesting. As well as pleasing to the eyes. A lot of pink is used on the content page, which usually means girlie, young and cute however in latest fashion, boys are starting to wear pink too, so therefore the connotations are changing, and I decided to go for a more modern approach as this would appeal to teenagers.

Here is my content page:

Music Magazine Analysis

Today we looked at different types of music magazines. We looked at the ways the magazines addressed the audience, and how we could tell for who and why the magazine was made for. For example what colour and font the text was, which adverts they had included, the image-text percentage and the style of writing.

I then analysed the front page, content page and one article of the 2007 issue 155 of Top of the Pops magazine. I looked at both the connotation and denotation of the magazine.

Lucy Cunnington

School Magazine

For the past two weeks, we have been working on your school magazines.
First, we looked at other school magazines and analysed them. Then we looked at the layout, text and images used for front covers. We desided indivdually what layouts we prefered and had a go at making a test front cover. I chose to do a fashion magazine called Whatever, where I used a med-length image of myself and edited in a photo of Bron in the left corner as a gossip advertisment. (Using photoshop)

Then we took lots more photo's that we could use in our school magazine for both the front cover and content page. I have finished my front cover now, and am currently working on my content page.
Bron and I are doing a magazine for 6th formers, college and university students. The magazine is there to try to help the readers deside if they want to take a gap year or not. If they do, it gives many tips on where to o and how to save, as well as some first hand experiences to read. We decided to make the magazine a free hand out, this is because many students dont have a lot of money, and we want every student to have a chance to read our magazine. We thought it could be handed out in assemblies, form times or maybe at the reception desk.

Bron is doing the 2010 Winter edition and I am working on the 2011 Winter issue. I was going to do the 2011 Summer issue but we found that getting images for the winter was a lot easier. We therefore decided I would do the next winter issue.

I am currenly researching other magazine content pages to give me idea's on how to layout my school magazine content page.

Lucy Cunnington

Lesson 5, 6 & 7

Lesson 5

We looked at different magazine front covers and talked about the good and bad points of their layout. We analysed how we knew for what the magazines were for (their purpose) and who their audience was. We also had a brief look at what language they used to achieve this, for example, persuasive text and commands.

We got into pairs and together analysed a front cover of a chose magazine. I analysed LOOK magazine with Bron. We analysed things such as colour co-ordination, model poses and font. All of these examples can give away the audience and purpose of the magazine, but they can also tell you more about what is in the magazine itself.

Lesson 6

We went around the school today and took photo's of things we could use in our school magazines.

Lesson 7

We presented what we had learned in lesson 5 to the rest of the class, and listened to what they had also learned. We then watched several adverts and had a go at figuring out what language they had used. For example, statistics, direct address, hyperbole (exaggeration), anecdote, rhetorical questions, the rule of 3 and commands.

Lesson 3 & 4

We looked at old postcards advertising different clothes. We learned the meanings of denotation and connotation and used them while looking at the postcards. We looked at how the body language, clothes and writing delivered hidden messages to the viewer. For example, a confident body stance in a certain piece of clothing can suggest to the viewer that when they buy these clothes, they will also be confident and cool. We also looked at how the women where positioned next to the men, suggesting that men were powerful and women were weak.

Later we googled for school magazines and analysed them. Here's an example:

Artistic Talent FFH
Front cover
The colours are bright; mainly red and yellow. This shows an artistic confidence to students. The front page has a large image of a GCSE student and her work. She is smiling and standing confidently. This is showing that she is comfortable with her work. This suggests that the maker wants students to appreciate their own work.

Lucy Cunnington

Introduction to Media

08/09/10 - Lessons One and Two.

From my understanding representation is how things in media are shown. For example, we looked at several Carolina Beach adverts today, where we analysed the construction of the adverts. We looked at things like camera angles, colours used and rhymes or alliterations. Often the camera angle, facial expressions and arrangement of a photograph can manipulate the picture so that the content can look completely different to the reality. We learned how this can be used in magazines to better fit with an article.

Later, we created google mail accounts so that we could create this blog. We learned how to create, edit and post blogs as well as show others how to read them.

Lucy Cunnington