Unit 51 Page Layout and Design

Production Commentary

Slide 1: Design ProgrammesThe programme I used for my magazine design work was Photoshop and only Photoshop, it is the only software that was good and easy enough to edit for example: my images and also the text that I made for my magazine. As I use Photoshop a lot on photography it wasn’t so hard to edit my original image and found image because I’m used to using Photoshop and I also know how to use a lot of the tools, as for making the masthead for my magazine front cover it wasn’t so simple as I’d never done any work with masthead’s before, I learnt that I could get fonts online and get my tutor to programme them on my computer for me so when I did this I had a mess about in Photoshop with a few fonts and different sizes, I made at least 5 and came to the decision to use one which wasn’t as creative as the others but suited the style of my magazine. When researching magazines and writing my own draft I used Microsoft word which is an easy programme to master, when making corrections to others drafts I used word and made notes at the side which was easy enough to do, as for PR9 and PR10 I used Microsoft PowerPoint because the layout is easier to show when transferring to slide share.

Slide 2: FormatsWhen researching for my fashion magazine I looked at a few magazines in class such as ‘mixmag’ and ‘Q’ but none of these really matched up to what I wanted my final magazine to be like as they’re music and film magazines so I went to the library in my spare time and got out an old edition of Vogue 1999, an Elle 2001 edition and a magazine called ‘glamour’ which I haven’t much knowledge on. As I know the style of vogue off by heart I decided that this was the style I wanted to go by because of how they develop their fonts to match the image they have on their front covers e.g. say the model on the front page is wearing gold eyeshadow they would have gold titles, or if the model had a blue skirt on they would have the title ‘Vogue’ in blue. I really like vogue on terms of how they project their front cover image, it always looks professional and glamourous, and then I found a magazine called ‘Vogue Men's’ and really liked how they (obviously) had a man on the front cover, I came to the conclusion that I myself would create a fashion magazine with a man on the front to turn the tables. I’m also really interested in the spoken language of French and how beautiful the words look on the internet so I decided to make my magazine’s region Paris.

Slide 3: Conventions & Visual LanguagePrimary Optical Area & Axis of OrientationBecause I know that this is the primary optical area I decided to make sure that my magazine masthead and slogan went in this area so that ‘florige paris’ is the first thing you see and read, then the reading gravity takes you down to the terminal area. I like that there’s more than one title in the primary optical area because you get more information about the magazine as you first look at it.

Reading Gravity

Terminal AreaI purposely put the date and price of the magazine in the terminal area and reading gravity area because a lot of people want to know the price of the magazine once they see the title and front image.

Weak Fallow AreaBecause the main purpose of my magazine is Angelina Jolie I put the article about my cousin, the model ‘Lewis Doyle’ in the weak fallow area so eyes wont be attracted to his article but will be to Angelina Jolie's.

GenreThe genre conventions I have used on my front cover is mainly the ones used on a fashion magazine such as Vogue, I’ve followed the same conventions like how the fonts match what the model is wearing, I’ve used a slogan that says ‘Paris’ after the main slogan which is what Vogue would do if their magazine was located in France, Japan, Korea etc. Because my magazine isn’t situation with film or music my only Genre is fashion.

I wanted my cover line fonts to be in black and white mainly because black represents power which I want this magazine to have, and white represents purity which is what my magazine revolves around as it’s not criticizing. Also white contrasts well with black, not only that my images are in black and white so it fits better as I said when I was researching magazines how ‘Vogue’ match their font with what the model is wearing, I wanted to do the same.

I feel as though the only emotion or attitude that comes from my slogan is cool and reserved because it represents purity and has an ethereal quality.

Slide 3: Conventions & Visual Language

Primary Optical Area & Axis of Orientation

I tried to make my slogan as gripping as possible as I’ve learnt that you have to have a slogan that grips the audience and makes them question what it’s actually about so they then read on, when they pick the magazine the audience will usually flip to the page which they’re interested in and if the article’s slogan doesn’t look or sound interested there’s a chance they will put it down and won’t buy it.

Read

ing

grav

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Terminal areaI think it was a smart idea to put the image of Angelina Jolie in the terminal area because you see her as soon as you’ve read the slogan.

I tried to do what you would see in a magazine article where they pick out important pieces of text from the story and put it so that it attracts the reader.

Slide 4: AudienceMy target audience is pretty much the same as Vogue Magazine, if I were to categorize it it would look like this:

GENDERMale — 53%Female — 86%

AGE16-34 years — 70%35-54 years — 28%55+ years — 6%

EDUCATION:Higher — 72%

SOCIAL STATUS:

Business owners, managers, specialists, white-collars - 39%Women who work in the fashion industry – 60%Teenagers who follow fashion – 49%70% of readers travel 1-3 times a year77% of readers have a car33% of readers own their own home

By following these guidelines I think I reached my target audience by not only putting an inspiring woman ‘Angelina Jolie’ in my magazine, but I also put an original photo on the cover of a boy of 19 which you don’t see on fashion magazines that are aimed at mainly fashion not just women, as I wanted my magazine to target women and men I think it was the best idea for me to put a boy on the cover. I think I’ve definitely reached the target age as many 16-34 year olds are clued up about Angelina Jolie as she’s been in so many films but not many know about her life only that she’s adopted so many kids so my magazine may have been informative which doesn’t really work for 16 year olds, but it’s information that they would like to read.