Research

For some of my research I looked at different types of magazines that inspired me, these where magazines such as Vogue, Elle and Vanity Fair. By doing this it helped me see what types of layout, fonts and images I was going to have to use. It gave me a good understanding of what it should look like and also what types of pictures I should take which was really important as the picture is main part of a magazine cover. Also by doing this I could see what types of subjects where mentioned in the puffs so that i can grasp the concepts and replicate that in my work.
I also did some textual analysis, this consisted of looking at 3 magazine covers and look and each detail and annals it. This gave me good idea of the amount of detail I had to include in my cover for it to look professional. It also helped me see why certain things where included and what affect they have. Another thing that it helped with the themes and layout of the cover, things like having to include a price and bar code. It was the first time I had to really analyse a cover and it showed me how precise I had to be with everything. By looking at the pictures it showed me how I had to take my photo and what outfits my model had to wear. I found out that the photos in high fashion magazines are usually very sharp and bright and the models are quite sexual in there body language and what they are wearing, I then had to recreate this in my photos.
My research has helped me to identify my target audience and also helped me to decide various different things to include in my survey. In my survey i asked a total of 13 people. There was 10 questions, 8 closed questions and 2 open questions. My first question was "what is your gender" I needed to know this as my target audience is mainly female so needed to know who was answering my survey so that I could extract the right information. Other questions like there age and there profession also helped with this. My survey analysis gave me good idea of what type of magazine cover I wanted to create and who my target audience was going to be. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to make a high fashion magazine for the ages between around 19 and 30. By doing the survey I knew exactly what my target audience was and that I had to relate the themes to that. So because my audience is female the puffs will include things that women can relate to and enjoy reading, things like makeup and fashion. I also asked the types of articles my audience prefers to read which again helped my choose a theme that my cover will portray.