PRELIMINARY EXERCISE:

This is my preliminary exercise and this was the front page of a school magazine.

 I used various colors and fonts. I highlighted the words so that would have a greater impact on the audience. My target audience would be teenage girls, the color scheme I used is mostly pink, red and sparkly attracting the girls. My cover story, which is "GEEKY WITH STYLE" reflects the main image of the cover page; of the girl holding the book with glasses on giving her a geeky look, whereas, her makeup and her hairstyle gives a sense of style.

My masthead is "SCHOOL BUZZ" which clearly indicates that it's a school magazine. The plug saying "Free makeup" that would attract the girls, obviously. The titles and the sub-titles I used in my cover are all related to things that a girl would be interested in, for example; a boy won't be interested in makeup or gossips or they don't even want to get involved in any drama, Boys hate it!

Summing it all up, This was the first ever piece I created out of Photoshop gathering all the essentials documents required and came up with the final product for my preliminary exercise.

ANALYSIS OF THE FRONT, CONTENT AND DOUBLE FOLD PAGE:

COVER PAGES

These are some cover pages of different fashion magazines. All the headlines are in bold and all the stories are aligned tilted. There are different types of fonts used and the colours used are very lightening and these colours lit up the magazine.

The front page of the magazine consists of masthead. Then comes the main image; which sums up everything that is to be in a magazine. The target audience for these fashion magazines are usually girls, college girls and also women aging from 20-40 years. The magazine consists about a main story which is likely to catch a reader’s eye, therefore he is the main imagine and the center point of the front page.

Then there are sub stories which are featured in the magazine. These stories feature other famous stars whose music appeal the target audience of that magazine. Most of the texts in this page are used in bright and neon colours which highlights the fact that for which market the magazine is targeted and accompanied by the titles of the sub stories, the image and the main cover lines relate to each other.

Then there is the Strap line, it is used at the top of the magazine and is used to create the brand identity of the magazine. Also, Pugs; They are used across different genres of magazines. Puds are used to look like stickers as if you could peel them. And lastly comes the barcode and the price, the price of the magazine indicates whether the magazine is a low, medium or high end magazine.

CONTENT PAGES

These are some content pages of various fashion magazines. A content page consists of a masthead, date, subheading, brief headings/summary of contents, quote, main image, colour scheme, extra text, and page numbers. Also there is a banner at the top, and in some cases, according to the requirements, there are editor’s note, edited image, previous/future editions of the magazine with details of website/ phone number etc.

DOUBLE FOLD SPREAD PAGES

Here are some samples taken from fashion magazines. A main picture which normally dominates one side of the double spread. Direct address from the artist is usually used. Following the codes and conventions the image in positioned. The Mis-en-scene usually represents the genre of the magazine. If an image goes from one page of the double page spread, and into the other, this is called ‘bleeding’. Sometimes on double page spreads extra images are used, maybe which related to one event or another. 

Questionnaire and Interview I prepared:

Interview:

1) Do you read magazines often?

2) How much would you be willing to pay for a magazine?

3) What do you dislike about fashion magazines?

4) What do you look for in a fashion magazine?

5) What price would you be willing to pay for a vintage fashion magazine?

6) Would you prefer adverts for new perfumes/make up or adverts about local vintage fairs and shops?

7) If you saw magazines in a shop, what convinces you to buy one?

8) Would you want the magazine to include interviews from celebrities that wear vintage clothing such as Lily Allen and Paloma Faith?

9) Would you like to see more text or pictures on the contents page?

10) What kind of cover stories would you like to see on a front cover?

A) Fashion tips

B) Vintage fashion clothing

C) Celebrity Interviews

D) Information on local events such as vintage fairs

Questionnaire:

1. What is your gender?

-Male    -Female

2.How much do you spend on clothes monthly?

-£0-£10

-£11-£30

-£31-£49

-£50+

3. Fashion to you is:

-Looking cool and stylist

-Looking mature and sober

-Comfortably

-A way to express my inner self

4.Do your friends complement your fashion style?

-Yes    -No

5.What is the colour you wear most often?

-Black

-Bright Colouring

-White

6.Which do you prefer?

-Designer Clothing

-High Street Clothing

7.Who is your favourite fashion designer (Old or New)?

8.What are your 3 favourite materials to wear?

9.What current trends do you like the most?

10. What current trend do you dislike the most?

11.Do you think style is important or unnecessary?

-Yes   -No

I took this interview and the questionnaire from 10 people.

Many read magazines daily and few of them read it twice a week, they would pay approximately $3-6 for a magazine,most of them disliked nothing about a magazine and few wanted more details on makeup. When I took the questionnaire 90% of the girls chose the same things, for them, fashion is to look cool and stylist, most of them wore black most often and preferred high street clothing. And 100% girls HIGHLY agreed that style is important.

I would like to make my magazine using these results and keeping in mind all the advises I got during these activities.

How did I start with Photoshop?

Before I started with Photoshop, I used to use Ipicci, Picmonkey and Picassa, the easiest from all these was Picassa as the other two had to be used online. I first found Photoshop tough, but as I furthered used it my confusion lessened. It took me two weeks to properly learn photoshop and some of the tools I learnt to use were; Move tool, Lasso tool, Polygonal Lasso tool, Magic wand tool,Clone stamp tool, Pattern stamp tool, Eraser tool, Magic eraser tool, Blur tool, Sharpen tool, Smudge tool and I learned how to add texts, and change their font types, colours and different styles of fonts.And now I can easily use photoshop without any problem, it helps me make my picture look more attractive and catchy to the human eye. And now I can easily construct a magazine in Photoshop. As everyone says, practice makes a person better!

The genre I'm going to work on for my magazine is "Fashion".

Here are some things I searched related to this genre, I learned a lot during this research. Here are some things below that I got to know;

Audience representation to Fashion magazine:

According to the industrial research, in the UK, 2600 magazine are sold every minute which is 3.7 million every day and 946,430 billion each year. The theorist, Robyn Collinson conducted a series of analyses into the Fashion genre. He chose to focus his research on the same person, Kim Kardashian and how each magazine focuses and portrays her.

The first magazine he analysed is Harpers Bazaar, an American fashion and style magazine, founded by Mary Louise Booth in 1867, It is published in 29 countries in 16 different languages. The magazine focuses on and audience of middle and upper case and bold, at the size of 60 and is also in black. This instantly grabs your attention as it is written in a fancy and stylish way.

The second magazine is called Fabulous and it's the free weekly insert from the British Newspaper, the Sun on Sunday. It is the biggest- read Sunday supplement in Britain with an estimated 3 million women reading it every week, 1.3 million women read Fabulous and no other women's weekly. The title of Fabulous, is very feminine, being pink and in italics. The red could be used as a way to promote the magazine as it makes the more neutral colors and images stand out a lot more.

Overall, from his research, He thinks that the Fashion magazines, I think it's a good thing as they do not seem degrading women as they put a positive image in their minds.

Institutions of a fashion magazine:

Harper’s Bazaar is an American women's fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for "women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture." Aimed at members of the upper-middle and upper classes, Bazaar assembles photographers, artists, designers and writers to deliver a "sophisticated" perspective into the world of fashion, beauty and popular culture on a monthly basis.

-> Fast facts of Harpers Bazaar:

Circulation: 52,642

Readership: 198,000

Cover Price: $8.50

Core Target: Women 25-49

Editor: Kellie Hush

National Sales Manager: Pete Harrison

Frequency: 10 issues per year

Content: Fashion

Source: http://www.bauer-media.com.au/harpers_bazaar.htm