Planning: My website Plan

This is an plan of what my website could look like when made in addition to my magazine front covers. I have done the research needed to do my magazine website plan that will help me.

Website:

This is a simple plan of what I would like my website to like when you first reach the homepage. By researching other websites it has helped me know what I might add in mine.

Firstly, I have added the masthead in the top left corner as this is mostly the same in other websites. I have placed where I would like a search bar and my social media links. Then I would add a subscribe box so I can advertise my magazine.

I have placed where my main feature and off leads for when you reach the homepage. Then I have wrote below what I will add when you would scroll down further down the website after the main feature and off leads.

Research: Website layouts for entertainment magazines

Here are some example websites from entertainment magazines. This is to give me an idea how different companies decide to represent their magazine and keep their brand identity.

Firstly, looking at these websites and other websites I now have some  ideas of how to plan mine on what is best to attract people to view the website.

Firstly, I have noticed that most websites have their masthead in the top left hand corner. This is always the same and never changes for their brand identity. These website have a clear navigation bar that will get you to different areas in the website. Also, on some websites the navigation bar follows down with you when you are scrolling.

Next, is social media links. Some websites are different with these as they sometimes but them right down the bottom of the homepage or some websites put them at the right top corner of the website so its easily to view and you can see this straight away. Some company websites also advertise a offer at the top of their homepage for the magazines. This is a way to attract customers to buy that magazine if they advertise it well.

Finally, entertainment magazine websites use large images to advertise the main feature of that day just like in a front cover of a magazine. Then if you scroll past the main feature the websites might have columns or rows to advertise other main feature. The further down you go they just use text or much smaller pictures to advertise other things.

Planning: Issue 2 Front cover and Contents

Here is a simple plan made on publisher that I might want my magazine to look like these are first ideas that I might want to do.

Front Cover:

This is the plan for the 2nd issue of my magazine.

Firstly, I decided that I would keep the bullet points of whats going to be in the magazine above the masthead. I have kept the masthead the same place. Kept the puffs and just moved them to different places. Also, for the off lead and main feature they are the opposite way round. 

The reason for the theme of going back to college is because this is the august magazine. And in that time of the month students are buying all the equipment to go back. This is the reason why I choose this sort of theme. This links to the Ta of being 16-25 as well.

The reason I have chosen these colours as august is the sort of time when summer is ending ready to go into the autumn term. For this reason I have added like the light green and blue in the masthead for summer and then added the orange to creep in the autumn ready look for the magazine. 

Contents:

This is the plan for my 2nd issue of my contents for my magazine. When researching magazines I have noticed contents pages roughly stay the same so that people reading the magazine contents already know where them headings are. 

Firstly, I have changed my contents colour to match my masthead colour. Again a this is a plan I am not sure if I want this bigger and more across the top. 

Next, I have kept the same layout with my features. Although this time I have shown an example of how I might put the numbers of the feature in the picture. This makes it more simple and I feel stand out more. For other features I have kept that diamond shape as bullet points to know where the other features are. 

I am not too sure if to change the colour or not as the puffs and the diamond bullet points are the same colour as the contents in issue 1.

Planning: Issue 1 Front cover and Contents

Here is a simple plan made on publisher that I might want my magazine to look like these are first ideas that I might want to do.

Front cover:

This is the plan for the front cover of my magazine. This will be the first issue of the magazine.

Firstly, I have learned when researching magazines that they are mostly stood on shelf in supermarkets. Then looking at magazines I noticed some put whats going to be in the magazine above the masthead. This will be to attract customers to the magazine so the best features need to be in that section. I have decided to take this idea and use it it my first issue of my magazine.

Next, when I have been researching magazines I noticed a lot of magazines use puffs. I noticed they stand out really well to the customer. Companies also use bold colours in order to show the puff off. I took this idea and used a light green colour to advertise the price and that it is a new magazine. As this is a plan i may change where these puffs are or the colour of them.

Next is the masthead. I decided on a tech sort of style font. This adds to my genre of my magazine. I decided to have it across the top as this will stand out more than in the top left hand corner which is in some magazines. I would like my main featured picture to be large. As this is a plan I am not sure if I will still use this photo or position this photo somewhere else. I would like my off lead to the side where it will have different listed features that is in the magazine and images next to them to represent what i am talking about. I am not yet sure on font or size yet for this.

Finally, I have also done the common things that are in a magazines. This being the bar code, issue date, issue number. 

Contents:

This is my plan of my contents page of my first issue. I have researched different magazines to see how they represent their contents pages. As this is a plan I am not sure if I am sticking with this layout.

Firstly I have put the word contents in the top left hand corner. This has the same font as the masthead to keep with the brand identity.  I am not sure if to keep it that small or stretch it more bigger across the top. At the top middle I have the issue number and month of the issue. 

Next, I have added the puffs. I am not sure if I want to keep these at all or change the colour of them to more lighter red. These puffs are to advertise the main features and the other features in the magazine. 

The main part of the contents is my features. I have Shown the top 5 features. I may put more of these to add more images but not sure yet. These are evenly spaced expect the 1st feature as this will be the top main feature of the magazine. This excluding the main cover. I have added diamond shapes which will have the page number inside. I am not fully sure if I will keep these shapes or just put the page number in the photo in a bold text. When researching magazines I have seen both styles. 

Research: Puffs in magazines

Puffs:

These are different style of puffs that are used in a magazine. They use simple words to attract customers to by the magazine as if they see  something interesting inside you will want to read more. So I will definitely using one of these. They also use bold colours to contrast to attract customers more if the magazine is on a shelf.

Research: Masthead fonts

Masthead Fonts

These are some masthead ideas I might use for my magazine:

These are some of mastheads that I might use. Some mastheads use capital letters and some magazines use a lower case font. They use quite bold font to stand out. I do like the "Tech" masthead where it is square blocks as it gives it a tech feel which I like. This goes with the theory of signs and signfiers as you want to give a meaning that people will give a  interpretation off. Also, the theory of Neale with repetition and difference so that people will know the brand identity of the magazine when it is released.

Research: Gender in magazines

Gender representations in other magazines:

Female

This is stereotypical represented for a female to purchase this magazine. It has a pink background. This is typically young female colour. You have a female celebrity at a medium shot adding to a female representation of this magazine. You have the added extras of women's clothes that you can buy to get the look. This also makes women want to look like the celebrity by her looks and wears.

As I want to have both male and female genders in my magazine I will be taking this idea of the female magazine. I could take the idea of dressing up with a women's look. Or using the pink background as a font. As tech is normally a male look using these ideas will add the female look of using tech.








Male:

This is stereotypical represented for a male's to purchase this magazine. It uses a long shot of a male guitarist. That breaks convention by not looking into camera. The generally would be represent for younger males that enjoy music in the way to look like him and hoe to get his style. This has a much plainer background so this doesn't really represent anyone. Also, with the extra's they advertise in the magazine being more male stereotypical things like tattoos etc.

As I want to have both male and female genders in my magazine I will be taking this idea of the male magazine. I could take the ideas of they look.  As stereotypical males are more into tech the style and font and the wear he is dressed can be added into my magazine.









Other Gender:




This is stereo-typically represented as a more modern transgender feature on this TV guide. This is as the main feature is about an lezbien women. This medium close up portrays this well by putting her in the foreground and how she is dressed is more stereotypical manly than they would dress at that time. This is a contrast to the more stereotypical women in the background of what she wears and how delicate it is.

I could take the idea in this magazine for my magazine by using a different gendered person and how they are dressed and portrayed in a way so people know that they are of a different gender. As this is a old drama show I can take to much from it but deferinatly can tell how different she is shown.

Research: Launch of 1st issue magazine

1st issue of magazine

This magazine of How it Works is the first issue. 1st issue magazines are not really much different to normal magazines. They have a puff with the word "New." They have a sell line "The magazine that feeds minds." As there new magazine. I will be using this in my new magazine I create.

Extras on the magazine I like is the masthead as I like the font. With the gear and cogs on it to add to their brand identity.

They have lots of pictures to show what's in the new magazine. They have lots of contrasting colours and I like the added detail of science having a orange logo. Environment being green. Etc

Research: 16-25 concerns

Concerns for the TA:

I am researching the concerns of our target audience of 16-25

Mental Health:

PTSD - The overall prevalence rate for a diagnosis of PTSD. It was much higher in young people and adults aged 16-24 years with 5% of young men and 4% of young women likely to screen positive for PTSD.

Depresssion and anxiety- The adult psychiatric morbidity survey completed in 2007 indicated that 16% of young people aged 16-24 met the criteria for diagnosis with a common mental health condition such as depression and anxiety.

Self-harm - Reports of self-harm were highest for young people of both sexes in the 16-24 age group.

Suicidal thoughts











For mental health there is a lot more conditions that affect 16-25 who need support e.g eating disorders etc.

Social concerns:

The top most social concerns that people ages 16-25 face people today

1. Lack of employment opportunities
2. Failure to succeed in education system
3. Family problems
4. Substance abuse
5. Pressures of materialism
6. Lack of affordable housing
7. Negative stereotyping
8. Pressures of 24-hour social networking
9. Crime

Research: Synergy and brand identity (2)

Synergy and brand identity:

Brand identity is used through out a magazine, contents page of the magazine and website. The entertainment magazine I have chosen to see the difference in these is TV Choice.

This is the front cover of the TV Choice magazine. This magazine does not break any conventions as it has barcodes, features and the main feature looking into camera. They use a range of different colours that match well together. For example the small featured shows at the bottom of the front cover the title for example The Bay is in a bold orange font. This is matched with a orange rim around the new show to separate the others. The main feature with the headline "Tragedy" is in a yellow font with a blue outline these colours contrast well. Although this can of breaks conventions as "Tragedy" is bad you would think of red colour. The masthead is a red background with white text with is quite common in entertainment magazines.

This entertainment magazine has no contents page inside. As magazines as a whole his could break the convention but as the genre of magazine being a TV Guide it might not need a contents page as much.


























This the whole of the TV Choice homepage when you click onto it. It is very simple and not much to it at all. I does match with the brand with the blue background and the masthead being te same in the top left corner. The front page has adverts down the side, a preview of the new issue and extras like be on tv and competitions. It does have a orange navigation bar at the top but this jsut leads you to competitions section, awards and contact us. This is very similar to whats on the homepage but jsut another way o get to them.

Research: Synergy and brand identity (1)

Synergy and brand identity:

Brand identity is used through out a magazine, contents page of the magazine and website. The entertainment magazine I have chosen to see the difference in these is Empire.

This is the Empire magazine itself. I am showing the front cover and contents page. Firstly the front cover clearly breaks a lot of conventions. There is no features at all on the front cover. E.G what is going to be in the magazine, no sell lines and no bsarcodes etc. They just use the masthead which is white when their brand is red in colour. This could be to stand out for the magazine as it is a special issue. The graphics for the front cover is amazing. A medium shot of the main characters of game of thrones is shown with blue of cold and oranges and reds for fire that stand out really well. This links to Jenkins fandom theory as this was a popular TV show that was around with many groups an forms discussing what is happening in the show.

The contents page of this magazine is a very clear layout. It uses small but clear and bold headings for features with the page number to the left of them. They use 5 different images that will be in ht magazine with Game of Thrones having the biggest picture. I like the way the headings have colours in the magazines. For exampe, features is in blue, the word Pre.View has the colour red for Pre etc. This links into the magazine as they have colour borders on the left pages to match with the colour of the heading. Next to the contents they also advertise that their magazine is mostly Game of Thrones look with an advertisement next to it.

This is the Empire magazine website. It has a very simple clear layout. The masthead on the website in the left top corner is bold, red colour. This does not match the magazine as the masthead is white in colour. They did this so they would stand out as the red and white contrast well on the website and the fire and coldness match the white font on the magazine.

The navigation menu carries on throughout the website when you scroll down as it stays in place. They have easy bold text to find what you want. This does not match with the headings in the magazine where they have colour in the beginnings of the headings. Like Pre.view where it is red at the beginning.

The wesbite when you go onto it has a very large image to show their main feature on what they are reviewing. This is sort of like the front cover of the magazine where they are showing a large shot of what they are advertising in the magazine. After that if you scroll down you have a heading called latest section. This is where Empire's latest articles have been posted.

The stars that are reviewed or a film in the magazine are the same style as whats on the website. If a film is rated 5 stars it is shown in the colour red. This matches their brand of being the colour red for "Empire" as 5 stars are normally a gold colour to show how good something is.

Research: Social Groups

Social Groups

In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Other theorists disagree however, and are wary of definitions which stress the importance of interdependence or objective similarity.

List of social groups:

• Fandom Groups - E.G Game of Thrones - This links to Jenkins theory of fandom. 
• Class - Income bracket A,B,C,D,E
• Race
• Age 
• Gender - E.G Stereotypical men are meant to be more powerful
• Sexuality - E.G Stereotypical that men are masculine
• Traditional groups  

Planning: My Top Magazine Photos

Top Magazine Photos:

This is one of my favourite photos for a potential front cover as I feel the natural outdoor lighting from this photo is very good. The capture details the face very well. You have a clear representation on this photo that someone is jogging listening to music. This adds to the health concerns of today.

I decided to do this photo at the end of the cleethorpes beach near the marsh area the reason I did this as a lot of people run down here or walk which works with the health representation theme.






This is one of my favourite photos for another potential front cover. I feel the natural outdoor lighting from this photo is very good. Especially the sunlight the helps capture this photo. You have a clear representation on this photo that they are students or university students hanging out waiting for the bus. This was a reason why I did this at the bus stop as a location.

The photo is a high angled shot that is shot to the side. The reason I choose to do a high angled shot was due to the way the friendship links strongly together to show the powerfulness of them.

This is another one of my favourite photos for a potential front cover or as a contents page. I feel when I took this on a bright sunny day the camera work will with the sunlight to give a good glow and exposure to the image. You have a clear representation that they are using their smart watch to check how well they did. This adds to the health concerns that are around today. Wondering if people are focusing on what it is telling you too much.

This is another one of my favourite photos for a potential front cover or as a contents page. The image here I feel is a good image as it focus on the lifestyle theme of the travel section of my magazine. It gives a clear representation of someone using technology by looking at other people's lifestyles. This was quite a hard capture to take as there was a lot of sunlight that day but wanting a photo with an outdoor location with a POV shot. There is a little bit of reflection of in the bottom corner. I hope I can remove this so I can use this in my coursework.

This is another one of my favourite photos for a potential contents page. The image here I feel is a good image as it clearly shows the representation of it being retro technology. As I zoomed in to take a different angle to get people to notice what this product is. There is a little bit of bright exposure with the white background but when creating my magazine i can crop or edit this to make it work. But overall I do think this is a good clear image.





I have over roughly 70 photos that I will be using. But these are just some of my photos that are good to explain why I have chosen to take these to create different representations for my 2 magazines. Also the quality of the image that has been taken.

Research: Colour theme in magazines

Colour themes

I have selected a few entertainment magazines to compare the the look and colour themes. I chosen Take a Break, Whats on TV, Inside soap and OK!.

This is just a range of entertainment magazines and as you can see these magazines use a red and white colours for their masthead. This is a colour that I will be staying away from as this colours are really common for mastheads in other magazines too. The colour themes that are used in magazines and other magazines do contrast really well e.g red and yellow and orange, blue. This means that I will be choosing what will work well together but are not over used in other magazines. 

Research: A gap in the market​

Gap in the market 

Hearst does not have any entertainment magazines really for our TA audience of 16-25. However, Bauer Media has some that are for our age category but not until 18-25. They don't have anything that fits the 16-17 year olds.  

On the Bauer Media website if you use their banner on the homepage and click on the heading brands then the sub heading audience finder. This takes you to all the magazines they have and you can use the age category section to scroll to the age there is. As you can see it only starts at 18 for our TA.

This is the magazines that Bauer Media sell that they categories as 18-25. This suggest that I need to target the 16-17 year olds that little bit more when making my magazine.

Front cover: Selection: Points of findings

Take a Break Magazine

This is the magazine I chosen to annotate all the magazine features that is there with media language, codes and conventions etc.

This magazine is TA is 16-18 year old that is at a lower demographic and i feel this is targeted more at women.

The magazine uses a noticeable brand identity in order for audiences to understand this brand. The "bigger prizes than any mag" is in a circle at the top of the magazine. This is to make the magazine stand out when placed upwards in the store. The magazine uses a strap-line "your favourite weekly" this is again to attract audiences to this magazines as it is on the top. This is in a bold sans serif font.

The magazine uses contrasting colours for the prices you can win. These are in a yellow and white font. Also it is in sans serif font. This is another added feature to attract audiences to win these prices. Next to the prices there is a good quality image of a medium close up of a women. She is facing the camera as well.

The Stories advertise can be quite gossip, factual and negative. The main story on the magazine uses slang "Hubby" this adds to the gossip style of the magazine. It uses bold sans serif font. Also adds the colour red and yellow "He couldn't stop getting married" this adds to attracting colours for the audience. They uses quite a poor quality photo to advertise the headline.

Next, are the off lead stories. These stories are feel that should be the main story a these are shown very negative and want to be read more as its more factual than gossip. The off lead "was I pregnant by my boyfriend or rapist?" This is in a bold sans serif font. These uses red and yellow to stand out and show the evilness of this and danger of the red. The off lead "OAP to OMG" is very gossip style to make gossip readers to read this. The advert "Treat yourself" is quite a positive advert which is underneath the negative stories.

Research: Hearst​ Magazines UK

Research- Hearst​ Magazines UK

Magazines do they already distributed:

 On the Hearst website they show all the brands of magazines that they distribute around. When you click on the magazine that is interesting you see lots of facts and statistics of that magazine.

For example, if you clicked on the entertainment magazine Digital Spy it tells you about the magazine. Different statistics are shown for the magazine for example 28 million global monthly users. 50:50 male-female audience.

Another example is that for QP magazine it will show different statistics. For example it says 7,300 Instagram followers and 8,300 Facebook followers.

Social Media + Participatory media:

On the Hearst Magazine website they use a lot of different social media and Participatory media links. For example, at the bottom of their homepage in the right hand corner, they have their social media links. This takes you to their Twitter and LinkedIn. Also, you have a participatory media link. This is to subscribe to their newsletter to get emails on new magazines   that they distribute etc. This is a way to get more  advertising for their company.

• participatory media

If you click on the magazine that you would like to look at it will will give you the social media links to their profile. For example, Digital Spy has Facebook, Twitter and Instagram so they will use them links to get to the the Digital Spy social media pages.

Target Markets:

On the Hearst website they show a range of different target markets by having a video on their homepage. The example of target markets is technology are used. The target market of business meetings and parties. Finally, the market of Men's health is advertised. There are a lot more on the video on the homepage than this. These are done to show all the different markets the company wants to advertise. As this is on the homepage it will attract audiences more to the website.


















Extras:

The homepage has a navigation bar. When the navigation bar comes up it has simple but efficient links that will take you around the website. The larger bold titles on the navigation bar are the main parts around the website winch will take us to their magazines etc. Then you have smaller links on the navigation bar. This takes you to their about us page to see about the company and how to contact them etc. 

Research: The TA

Researching the TA

I did my target audience survey on Survey Monkey. This enabled me to find out about what magazines people liked between 16-25. I asked them 10 questions but I am going to show the main ones I used which will help me with my coursework. Overall, I had 50 responses. Between 16-18 I had 42 responses, 19-21 4 responses and 22-25 being 4 responses. Finally, I had 31 female responses and 19 male responses. 

Firstly, I have gone through my responses and with all ages being 16-25. I went onto excel and created a chart of the types of magazines people liked best between and put them under male and female. I said on my survey that they could choose 1 or more types of magazines they liked best.
From my results you can see that with male they like food and drink, technology, film and cinema music and gaming the best.
With females the best type of magazines was gossip and celebrity, health and beauty, music and film and cinema.
Both males and females liked film and cinema.

Next, one of my main questions was how often do people read magazines. As you can see with the graph roughly 70% of people between 16-25 had hardly read a magazine. This can be due to the gap in the market as not many companies have magazines at that age range.

The last main question was what catches your eye in a magazine. here you could choose one or more. As you can see from the survey it was the images with over 60% that attract people a lot more in the magazines. This is good if it is sat on a shelf in a store as images would attract people more. The next best was the headline and the gossip in a magazine. 

Splitting the ages up in categories as 16-25 is quite a big target market gap. The most of what they liked in the category. This will be shown on a graph as well as saying which one is best.

16-18 - Male popular choice - (14)

As you can see on this graph. The 14 responses I have shown for this section is that Food and Drink was the type of magazine they liked best. With many other magazines close behind.

16-18 - Female popular choice - (28)

As you can see on this graph. The 28 responses I have shown for this section is that Gossip and Celebrity was the type of magazine they liked best. With others close behind to that.

19-21 - Male popular choice -  (3)

As you can see on this graph. The 3 responses I had shown for this section is that Film and Cinema, Music and Education was the type of magazine they liked best.

19-21 - Female popular choice - (1)

As I only had 1 response for this category the best types of magazines for that person was Technology, Gossip/celebrity, Interior design and Health and beauty  

22-25 - Male popular choice - (2)

As you can see on this graph. The 2 responses I have shown for this section is that Gaming was the type of magazine they liked best.

22-25 - Female popular choice - (2)

As you can see on this graph. The 2 responses I have shown for this section is that Fashion was the type of magazine they liked best.