Sunday, 14 October 2012

Magazines and Audiences: Part 2



Magazine Analysis:
This magazine is called vogue, which means 'prevailing fashion' and this indicates that the content of this magazine will be based on or around fashion and beauty. By analyzing this you begin to think that the audience being targeted with this magazine is women, young women into fashion. This particular issue was aimed at a women's shape and figure, but not only the skinny women (sizes 0-12) but they say 'size 0 to size 20' so here it widens the audience of customers able to read and relate to the magazine. The audience doesn't feel subdued to looking a certain way or being a certain size, it makes them feel better about themselves. Vogue have used Beyonce Knowles as the model/celeb on the front page of this magazine as she is most known for her curvaceous figure aside of her singing talent, she is idolized by many for this. So using her as the cover model is giving the reader an imagery of any size is beautiful. On the page, the text is in a blue colour to match the dress which Beyonce is wearing; also the text appears in white. Both of these colours bring across a rejuvenated, fresh new feel of women suddenly realising that their size is perfect and needs no changing. Although one of the cover lines does say ‘Work It!’ which contradicts the idea of not having to change your figure, making you work out to achieve the body of your dreams, but the other cover lines are encouraging you to dress to fit your body. The strap line going across the top left hand corner of the page says ‘NIP/TUCK’ and ‘Designing a perfect body’ these two headings could not be more different from ‘real women have curves’. The headings that appear in the strap line bring insecurities to women not comfortable within themselves, but this strap line is small compared to the other text on the page. This could be meant to be used as a last resort, getting the reader to read into having the right fashion for their body before taking extreme decisions. The background colour of the strap line is gold, which promotes the idea of expense and riches meaning that only the really rich or people of celebrity/famous status can achieve this ‘perfect body’ by getting surgery. Vogue follows a number of conventions needed to design a successful magazine; one of these is the masthead in a serif font (serifs added) at the top of the front cover. This masthead is also known as the title of the magazine, commonly the title appears in a big, bold font along the top of the page, this signals to the reader what it is they’re reading. Also another convention of a magazine is the use of a left third which is where the information about the content of the magazine appears on the left hand side of the page, this keeps everything neat and tidy. It also attracts the readers’ eye to read the main stories/articles from within the magazine; it can be used as a selling point to persuade people into wanting to have the magazine. Sans serif font (doesn’t have serifs) is used on this magazine cover for the majority of the text this gives the magazine a modern feel with the standard bold, typed text. This text is very clear to read.
I think this magazine front cover has been thoroughly thought through, and placement of text and images has been decided well to not make it look too full or jam packed full of information. It only uses relevant information to be used to entice the reader and all of the information relate to one topic, ‘Shape Issues’ which happens to be the name of this particular issue.

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