Case Study Part 1: Front cover

Image:

The front cover of Hello Magazine is Princess Charlotte.

The daughter of Cambridges’, a major part of the British Royal family. The close up of baby Charlotte, allows the country to feel closer to the royal family. It is beneficial for the magazine as this issue applies to the whole country as oppose to a specific audience. Her facial expression is a slight smile which is welcoming and warm. Using a close up allows us to see her strong features and have a good look at the latest royal family member. You can see that she is a cute chubby baby girl, the audience is able to create comparisons and see resemblances between other family members and  baby George. The sweet floral dress topped over with a light pink/cream cardigan sets a very neutral tone to the front cover. 

The font colour (white) used around the cover also suggests this. The use of neutral tones and white for the font suggest innocence and purity which is exactly what little Charlotte is. Charlottes eye line is slightly to the side which doesn’t create the feeling of superiority, it makes Charlotte seem like an ordinary baby, this allows the uses and gratifications theory to apply to the audience as they are able to relate, children will be able to relate when seeing the picture as will parents of little children. They are also able to engage and escape their ordinary routing by flicking through the magazine. 

Title:

 The title of the magazine ‘’Hello’’, is a sister to the ‘’Hola!’’ magazine in Spain.

The aim was to create a light hearted magazine which focused on new marriages, relationships, babies and other self centered stories .Unlike other magazines, ‘’Hello!’’ focuses on the positive things about celebrities and does not aim to demoralise or make famous people look bad. The magazine focuses on Royals and compelling human interest stories. The respectful treatment of many celebrities allows the magazine to hold a positive relationship with many stars. This also follows through with the magazine title as it is a greeting, a friendly greeting. This sets an expectation for the magazine to readers and ‘’Hello!’’ lives up to the expectations.

Language:

The language used in the magazine is formal and sophisticated, the magazine uses ‘proper’ English to appeal to its audience as it includes articles of people within the higher social class. No abbreviations or shortened words are used. The language used is usually flattering such as ‘’picture perfect’’ and ‘’angelic’’ again works with the magazine title and aim as it comes across as friendly and generous.

Coverlines:

The coverlines on the front cover again solemnly focus on baby Charlotte, alerting the audience on the official photo album, photos with the ‘’adoring mum Kate’’ otherwise known as the Duchess of Cambridge. The front cover doesn’t include any information about other featured articles, this allows the audience to entirely focus on Royalty for the issue, this helps attract a wider range of readers and buyers for this particular issue of Hello magazine. As the magazine is aimed at the working/lower social classes it allows them to interact with those ‘above’ them.

Price:

The magazine sells at £2.00 , this is the average price for magazines.

This suggests that it appeals to those of the lower social classes as it is affordable. It also allows for the magazine to be favorited as other magazines such as Marie Claire sell at £3.99, this means that the readers will appreciate the consideration for the audience and their affordability. 

Magazine Colour Schemes

The main colour scheme of Q magazine is red,white.yellow,soft pink and black. The colours used in the magazines front covers are usually very attractive and bright. The logo of Q magazine has a red square background, this has connotations of love, danger and passion. This also makes the logo of the magazine memorable therefore it is highly noticeable to its audience when sitting on the store shelves.The font colour is white which contrasts the background and has different connotations of innocence, purity and elegance. The subject also has a white dress which suggests the same idea. There are a variety of colour's used to make this front cover appealing. The use of soft pink font around the corners of the magazine cover aid to blend everything together. The colour's used in the Q magazine, which is based on music and has a young audience of mainly aged 15-44 years old. 


The use of the colour yellow is used to attract attention to specific parts of the magazine, it contrasts all the colour's used as it is the strongest, yellow has connotations of power,happiness, strength and energy. It is where the readers eyes will divert too almost straightaway. This is good to get the message across to the audience immediately about what is included in the magazine also to bring attention to what targets the audience specifically such as festivals, new songs,new albums etc...  The layout of the magazine also suggests that the magazine has a lot to offer, there are so many little details included on the front cover. This makes every issue special and unique.

 The magazine also sets out their double page spreads in a specific way, again using the colour red to make an exquisite report on any famous singer/songwriter. The celebrities initial is splashed across the page in red for every artist used in Q magazines issue. The colour's used on the front cover are mirrored throughout the magazine in the different articles and picture's used.

Formative blog feedback - Miss Hunter

Gresa, your blog is on track.

 

So far:

 

WWW: Your ideas are thoughtful and detailed. You understand the conventions of a magazine and I can see that you have used them in the preliminary task. Your magazine covers look impressive. Well done.

 

EBI: Try to work faster so that you keep pace with the best students in the class. You are capable of doing very well in this coursework, but you need to avoid rushing the final steps.

 

Next steps:

• Case study of a magazine of your choice - front cover analysis, contents page analysis, double page spread analysis, colour (throughout the magazine) analysis.

Keep up the good effort.

School Magazine Questionnaire

Language Analysis

EMOTIVE AND COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE IN A MAGAZINE

Elle Magazine is a well-known fashion magazine; it has a target audience of 16-30 year olds. ‘Elle’ does mean ‘She’ in French after all so it is all about the females. 

There is a use of emotive and colloquial language throughout the magazine, this aides in making the audience feel comfortable and assures enjoyment when reading the magazine. The most common use of colloquial language are words/phrases such as ‘’insta’’, ‘’tweet’’, ‘’filters’’ and ‘’most likes/most followers’’. These examples are considered as being colloquial language due to it being frequently used in today’s society. All of the above are references to social media. This shows the incredible progress and importance social media holds in today’s society.

 Considering the rapid improvements in technology it’s no surprise for magazines to use these phrases too. Using colloquial language allows the audience to be more attracted and allows them to feel as they are engaging or being reached out to by the magazine.

Another word used like ‘LOL’ which is an abbreviation for ‘laugh out loud’ is a phrase used when texting someone you speak to on a regular basis. The use of such language suggests a relationship and therefore suggests comfortableness. This means that by the editor using language like so will make the reader feel included and suggests a friendship between the reader and the editor which is important for the magazine. The editor also uses social media like twitter and also publishes the tweet on the Elle website stating that she is ‘’not to be trusted around jam doughnuts and karaoke machines’’. This again highlights the fact that the editor is keen to create an impression where she is seen as laid back and easy to approach. There are no barriers and this allows the reader to feel comfortable and trust the contents of the magazine, with the editor not portraying a very hard core authoritarian personality it makes the magazine more enjoyable. The editor knows and understands the audience and therefore the magazine becomes more appealing. 

Preliminary School Magazine Contents Page

Preliminary School Magazine Cover

Preliminary Title Ideas

Preliminary ideas for magazine

Possible Titles:

• The Hampstead Buzz
• Hampstead Feed
• Discover Hampz

Possible Images:

• Close up of students working, intense concentration
• Medium shot of a group of students chatting, laughing, possibly eating lunch?
• Wide shot of the head teacher and a group of students engaging in an activity

Possible Cover Lines:

• Percentage of passes at GCSE's and A Levels
• Information about the million dollar building project
• Prefect and School council elections

Preliminary Cover Ideas

Editors Letter Analysis

The magazine ‘The Edit’ mainly appeals to higher class females. The editor’s letter also appeals to the same target audience of matured females, specifically within ages 24+ as it is a fashion based magazine. The editor uses fashion terminology like ‘retro references’, ‘soft fabrics’ etc.

 

 

The editor gives the impression of a friendly person, giving out fashion advice to people she supposedly knows well. The editor allows the audience of the magazine to relate to models of females used in magazines, which also abides with the uses and gratifications theory (allowing the audience to relate) The editors letter includes a photo of the editor which makes the letter seem more personal.

The language used is encouraging, phrases like ‘’the new luxe is in feeling good about yourself’’, this helps encourage self confidence in females given that they are continuously demoralized due to the major sex appeal for females in the media industry. The editor focuses in giving fashion tips to help females that are targeted by the magazine, to be stylish and fit into the fashion industry.

The editor aims to make the audience of the magazine feel comfortable and for her to be seen as approachable as possible. This helps set a friendly and accepting vibe for the magazine which is picked up by the readers automatically. The edit seems like a casual magazine, (yet within the fashion genre) the way it is laid out and the contents of the magazine aim to help relax the audience. The females that are used on the front covers and the clothes used also suggest whom it may appeal too, all females over the ages of 18 could possibly be attracted by a magazine of this sort. The editor makes everyone feel welcome and doesn’t discriminate against any reader which is important. It is very important for the editor to create a relationship with her frequent readers.

Cover annotations

Preliminary contents page annotations