Publishing House Case Study

The magazine publisher that I've researched for this Case Study is "Conde Nast", a magazine publisher that publishes for fashion magazines such as "Vogue" and "Glamour magazine". Magazines such as Vogue and Glammer are renoundly known for their never ending updates on the latest fshion and has a massive influence on each seasons trends and fashions. These magazines are normally targeted at young women who are fashion addicts and who are interested in fashion.

"Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps for mobile and tablet devices. The company, headquartered in New York City, was founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast and has been owned by the Newhouse family since 1959. S.I. “Si” Newhouse Jr. is the chairman and CEO of Advance Publications, Charles H. Townsend is Condé Nast’s chief executive officer and Robert A. Sauerberg is Condé Nast’s president." - Wikipedia

Vogue magazine has now been developed and is not only available for subscription monthly by mail, but can be bought and downloaded online onto your computer,laptop, iPhone and iPad. This is rarely done with magazines, however as Vogue is the best selling and no.1 fashion magazine, its realistic for  people however who want to purschase it it's possible.

My music magazines targeted at a young female audience who are all lovers of Pop and who are influenced by Pop artists. Pop artists normaly follow the trend and take isits to Fashion weeks hosting major designers in the industry who normally display they're work and photoshoots of their work in Vogue magazine. Because of this young girls and women between the ages of 15-29 years old would purchase not only Pop music magazines but fashion magazines aswell.

A massive company like Conde Nast couldn't relie on only one magazine to bring in enough sales revenue to run the business and also be profitable. Because of this they publish different magazines targeting different audiences who they know will be interested in the magazine. By doing so they'd be able to reach majority of the audience in this market and be able to expand in every area of their business.










"Magazine publisher Conde Nast has seen a 268% jump in digital subscriptions sales per week on average, Monica Ray, Conde Nast’s EVP of consumer marketing, announced Tuesday. Single copy sales across its titles have risen 142% compared to the previous eight weeks." - mashable.com

Question 7: "Loooking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?"

"Loooking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?"

Through my preliminary task I think I've learnt alot on how to apply specific conventions for my magazine for the front cover, contents page and double page spread. Through this I was able to develop and improve my skills on Adobe Photoshop, as well as this I was able to showcase these skills through my magazine's front cover, contents page and double page spread. Comparing my College magazine to my Music magazine I can see a major improvement however I still think that there was alot more I can have done to my Music magazine to show how much of magazine cinventions that I understood. For example in my Contents Page rather thn to use the same fot that I used in my magazine front cover, I've changed it.

Using Adobe Photoshop, I think that I learnt how to use it to enhance the quality of the photos use in my magazine through cloning to airbrush the models blemishes-just to perfect it and adjust the brightness to give it more of a natural glow. However there were a few tools in Photoshop that I still didn't know how to

During the progression from my preliminary task into the full productof music magazine I learnt how to attract my audience from my magazine front cover and throught the mistakes of my preliminary task. By attracting my audience , I had to focus on the social groupthat I was targeting similarly as my college magazine was aimed at college students. Because of this I had to do background research on my target audience and weave it into my music magazine, I had to convey and present this in my magazine.

Through my preliminary task I learnt how to use a Canon E05 400D camera to take great quality photos for both magazines.

Question 4: "Who would be the audience for your media product?"

"Who would be the audience for your media product?"

In my audience Research, it showed what people between the ages of 15- 29 years of age would be interested in and are influenced by Pop music and Pop artists. As my magazine was targeting a national (British\) and International audience, my magazine had to contain world renowned and popular Pop Artists.

Therefore, I planned to target this specific market/audience. By doing so I needed to draw the audience in by using a young female model, dressed in key colourful costume since Pop magazines are often bright or with wild and bold make-up. This has been done often by Pop artist "Katy Perry" who is a prime example of bright colours in the Pop magazine scene. I have attempted to imitate things music magazines contain which appeals to the young audience such as; Tour dates and Concert ticket give aways, and the older with exclusive interviews on non established artists and Gossip filled top stories.

   

Pop Music in the past was mostly listened to by white people, both male and female; but since then pop music has adapted and has become multi-cultural and is listened to by young and old consumers. This is to pop music magazines advantage as they'd be able to publish their magazine internationally.

Double Page Textual Analysis

Denotation:
The Magazine Double Page Spread has a women on the right-hand side of the page looking at the camera from the side of her side eye and head. Its a medium shot showing her head and arms.


Character:
The model is Lilly Allen a British Singer who is wearing a Red checked shirt on this double page spread .


Costume:
Despite the other clothes that she models in for some magazine front covers or double page spreads she is often wearing something that shows flesh, however in this spread she is wearing a dark red checked shirt which is almost buttoned to the top.

Title:
The title has been used like a lettering collage with the different letters big and small. It takes more than half of the left side of the page, which makes it very eye-catching as its even a grabbing story which leads the audience into reading the story,

Text:
The story text is very small and right beneath the title which gives you the pathway to the story.

Question 2:"How does your media product represent particular social groups?"

How does your media Product Represent particular social groups?

My music magazine is made to target teenagers, pop lovers between the ages of 14-29 years of age. Pop music and pop music magazines are consumed largely by females than men shown through a survey carried out about "Cosmo" consumers. Through this I've added things into my magazine for this particular social group. I've used various things such as colour, props and costume apart of of the mise-en-scene in my front cover to represent my targeted social group.

Firstly, the model that I've used for my magazine has been dressed to fit the social group that I've researched about for my magazine. She is wearing a

The jewellery added to my models costume has been kept to a minimum of plain small studs kept behind her big bushy hair and a simple long silver chain. This was kept to a minimum because it could have been dis-tractive of what she was actually wearing and stand out more, however i do feel that she could have been given more jewellery to wear to make it more eye catching. The colours on the models outfit is quite dramatic, bright and bold itself with bright  and bold make-up to match it. The pose struck by the model also is an imitation of the poses done in pop music magazines. The model stares directly at the camera whilst her head is slightly down. She is not smiling which gives a sort of vulnerable impression about her, however it comes across a bit seductive as she pulls one of her brace straps which is seen also in and is also associated with the genre - Pop.

Profiling your Audience

   
Blender Reader:
This is Ellie who is 17 years of age, she is crazy about Pop music and has been a fan ever since she heard the Spice Girls being played in her home at the age of 6. As its been an influence in her life, its been an influence in her sense of fashion as she strives for what a celebrity may have; including designer handbags, jewellery shoes and more. Although coming from an average middle class background she always tends to purchase Blenders monthly editions like her other friends this age too - all from a middle class home. From this they like to catch up on celebrity Gossip, find new music, tour dates and new trends set by some artists such as Rihanna, Beyonce and Katy Perry. She loves the live music experience and often goes to summer music festivals such as Wireless and T4 with her mates.

As Blender has a range of different colour schemes it is eye-catching to the young pop audience, however with some adult content it would be appealing to people to the maximum age of 29/30 perhaps. I could apply this knowledge to the rest of my magazine its layout and content.

Manipulated and Un-manipulated photos : Front Cover

This is the un-manipulated photo which I used for my Front Cover. I liked this pgoto as she looked quite promiscuous however innocent by her body language and her eye contact towards the camera.

Here is what ive done after photoshopping the image. Ive made it more darker showing the models real skin tone and adding a glow effect to her eyes.

Question 6 : "What have you learnt from technologies from the process of constructing this product?"

"What have you learnt from technologies from the process of constructing this product?"

In the process and making of my magazine I had to use Adobe Photoshop version CS3 to construct my music magazine. Adobe Photoshop has a selection of tools in helping to develop and transform a jpeg image or file into whatever you want it to be. To begin with, my teacher lead me into learning how to use a Canon E05 400D to take pictures with later on for one of my tasks. During my first time of using the camera, I used it to do my first preliminary task of creating a college magazine cover and contents page - the prep towards the main task. From this I learnt how to create an image that is to how I'd like it to look like, things I've learnt include how to focus the lens and a particular spot and angle that you want from your viewpoint from the camera.

All the images that I had taken were all in one place which made it easier to move around, rather moving from location to location and was more time efficient. By using the the Canon E05 400D I was able to enhance quality into every photo that I took which was helped by the cameras flash. Although the camera worked well, it took quite some tie to get the focus, as indicated by the cameras red eye. It was also quite hard to keep still as I was working without a tripod which mean that some pictures taken were blurry.

After I had taken all the photos, I uploaded them to my computer documents and moved them to my pictured file. I then opened Adobe Photoshop where I was able to select the photos that I wanted to work with. Through Photoshop I learnt how to manipulate photos that I had taken from the Canon E05 400D and used it to help construct my magazine. From my photos I was able to take the pictures that I had taken and clone some ares of that I wanted in maybe a differnet area. I also learnt how to adjust the brightness of the image and use curves to adjust the angle of the lighting as well as levels.

Adobe photoshop allows you to convert images to different images into jpeg files as i needed to upload some photos onto blogger, however they were psd files.

Question 5: "How did you attract/address your audience?"

By using my audience research trough or example blackberry messenger, I found out how to draw my audience through different aspects of mise-en-scene.I found that the first thing and most important way of drawing in your audience is by your music magazines front cover. As this is the first thing that they'd see, it determines if my audience would purchase the magazine or not, depending on how attracted to it they are. By trying to appeal to an adult but mostly teenage audience, I decided to use a teenage model and dressed her up to look however a bit older( 19 -20 years of age by her elaborate make-up and tight clothing). My model has worn clothes that my target audience usually wear and the style mostly associated with pop such as bright clothing which is either tight, lose or quite revealing, but as its targeted also to a young audience, it couldn't be too revealing. Things that she's worn including; a boob tube bright sky blue top which could con notate her freedom, especially as some teenagers feel that they can do anything that they want.

Pop artists usually like to wear statement jewellery, however simple and to the point for example; Billboards October 2008 issue with Country/Pop singer Taylor swift as its cover. This fashion isnt particularly high street, but has some high street trades with a twist of retro. Pop girl group "The Saturdays" and 2011 X Factor winners, girl group "Little Mix" do the same. This also attracts the audience as they are always searching for the latest fashion.

By addressing to my audience that this was a music magazine an even more specific- Pop, I decided to use obvious this in my Front cover using the cover lines and ticket give aways. Through the cover lines of my music magazine i used well known pop artist names to attract my audience, for example "RIHANNA, AND THE TRUTH BEHIND WE FOUND LOVE MUSIC VIDEO!", which would definitely appeal to my audience as Rihanna's music is consumed by a lot of 15-20 year olds. In my cover line, I also talked about concert ticket gveaways which would draw my audience to read further to know what concert and how to recrecieve the tickets.

Through my whole magazine I've kept to three fonts, and have kept it consistent as I didn't want to have too much going on, however I feel that I've made the right choice including with my my font colour keeping to the magazines colour scheme. I thought that the colour pink would attract my audience as most of my consumers would be female no matter what age. I simply used font given by Adobe Photoshop and used it for my Title, Cover lines and normal text. Using one of the tools on Photoshop (Clone) I made the text be a mimic of the sound waves from speakers, since my magazine is called "The Sound".

Another way that I attract  my audience is through my magazines contents page listing everything that will come up in the magazine. In the contents page I included Interviews from different well known pop artists which would attract my audience as they'd want to get to know them. I also included regulars from the magazine such as tour dates to which would be of interest to the reader to no that from each issue they'd know the tour dates from their favourite artists knowing where and how to see them.

Manipulated and Un-manipulated photos : Double Page Spread

Here is the image used for my Double Page Spread on the first page of the double page spread- this was unmanipulated.

This is the one that i manipulate by decreasing the opacity on photoshop to make it quite translusant. Ichose this photo because it was eye catching.

This is the finished product of my double page spread after manipulating it.

My Double Page Spread

Mock ups for Double Page Spread for my music mag.

Mock ups of Contents Page for my music mag.

Mock ups Of my front Cover for the music mag.

Double Page spread Codes and Conventions

Colour Scheme:

This double page spread follows a simple colour scheme of grey, white and blue which is reflective of what the boys on the pages are wearing.

Image:
There are two boys in the double page spread who are posed simply giving the camera full eye contact and direct address. The images a spread length wise from top to bottom of the page. Its text has been placed along side of both images and has some in white circles on top of the waist of the models.

Subject:
On the top of the pages the models names are placed on top of a quote from them.


Quotes:
A quote has been taken from the Interview and which has been placed underneath the models' name in bold white lettering.


Stand-first:
These are on top of the third paragraph following of the double page spreads.


Drop Capital:
There are no drop capitals in theses articles.

Headline:
There is no direct headline apart from the models' name in a different font and in blue, as they are recognisable from pop boy band "One Direction" this is already a way of grabbing the readers attention.

Music Magzine

Music Magazine Contents Page

Contents Page Codes and Conventions

Colour Scheme:

Pink has mainly been used in this music magazines contents page with black and white in addition being its central colour scheme.

Mix:
There is a mix of photos, headings and and text boxes which is all included in one page.

Columns:

The magazine is laid out in columns with text boxes and number pages.

Main Image:

A medium image of 4 caucasian men stand together posing casually.

Other Immages:
There are images that are included in the magazines content page which corespond to the title that are in the

Masthead:
The magazines name is right on the top of the contents page which is written in pink and which is said in their logo.

Title:
The title page includes the the issue date, however with the page number at the bottom, without a web address or contact info. It has a voucher instead of a competition.

Categories:
A new feature is included on the left hand side of the magazine with new news, and in the centre column showing new things too.

Text Boxes:
There are different text boxes in the contents page which include titles to grab the readers attention and to highlight the most important stories.

Sub-Lines:
In the text box with the big number "1" has its main title in Pink and its sub-line saying "oh girl" this automatically has the audience thinking suspicially about that story drawing them to read it.

White backgrounds:

The background is split into pink on the outside of the left hand side column which acts as border whilst the actual contnts of the page has white as its background.

Conventions of a music magazine cover

Masthead:

The name of the magazine all in black-big and bold, the “a” filled in with blue and the “d” filled in with a dull yellow.

The Cover Lines/The Sub Stories:

 The sub stories and headings in black and red. These are the iconic.

Main Cover line:

The cover line is placed underneath the big title “Adele”. It has been written in white.

Underneath it there is a sub-text which is also white and bold.

Prop (In this case costume):

In this the model, is wearing a long black jacket and has used its collar to cover half of her face emphasising her eyes as the cover line adds “NOW SHE’S EYEING TH U.S.A”.

The Barcode:

The Barcode is on the left hand side of the magazine with the date right above it. 

Conventions of a music magazine cover

Masthead:

The Name of the magazine is in a light pink behind the head of the model.

Main Cover line:

Bold not very large at all however and bright baby blue, translucent with white lines around each letter. Black text to the minor part of the cover line. 

Prop:

This Compliments the main cover line and the main image of the magazine front cover. This is shown by the mode holding a camera to her eye emphasising the line “LIKES TO WATCH”, “PHOTO ISSIUE” and “PAPPARAZI”.

Cover Line/ Sub Stories:

Its placed along the side of the main image. A mixture of the light pink and light blue for the cover line highlights the most eye catching stories of the magazine.

The Barcode:

Used by the retailers of the magazines to store how many magazines have been bought. (Month and year of magazine usually comes with the price)

Audience Research via Blackberry Messenger

MoodBoard for Pop Magazine

These are a combination of pop artists, pop album coers and the sort of logos and colours that are associated with Pop.