Font choices

In this post I will explore possible fonts which I may choose to use and how they are used within the media industry. I will look at some on the conventions set by professional publications and help these to aid my choice.


The first font I would like to look at is Helvetica. This fonts looks like this:

This font is a sans serif font which will stereotypically appeal to a younger audience which is my primary target audience. This font is also very popular with print media because of its simplicity and the way it looks when printed. This suggests that I should use this font because I would be following the codes and conventions set by professional magazines.

I feel that this font would be good to use on my magazine as it should appeal to my target audience because it doesn't have the flicks which serif fonts tend to have. This will make my magazine appear less formal and more fun, which as Hebdige suggests would appeal to a young target audience with his theory "youth as fun.'

This font looks a lot more formal than the one above. This is mainly due to the fact that this a serif font which features the flicks which can be seen at the edge of each of the letters. Due the fact that this looks a lot more formal, it will not stereotypically attract a young target audience. This means that I shouldn't use it in my products because it may alienate my target audience from my magazine and cause them not to read it.

This font is better than the one above because it is more bold and 'blocky' which will stereotypically appeal to young audience. This kind of font is often used on print media which is trying to appeal to young people because it can be seen as fun, and as Hebdige said 'youth as fun", suggesting that anything which can be connoted as fun will appeal to young people. However, this font can be seen as slightly formal because of its serif style which is often used as a formal style of text which will not usual appeal to young audiences. However, because of the overall style of this text it may not matter and it may be usable on my magazine.

Possible names

For the name of my magazine I have come up with a variety of different names. The names I have come up with I have thought about my target audience and whether or not they will like the names which I came up with. I have considered the meanings and the connotations of the possible names to see how they will appeal to my target audience of young people.

The first name I came up with was "Yonk". This is the Cornish word for the word young. This will allow my target audience to instantly relate to the magazine. I thought that a Cornish word would be good here because it easily relates my magazine to the region which it is based around. Also for the Cornish, the old Cornish language is special to them which again allows my target audience to instantly relate to my magazine.

Another name which I came up with with was the name "Bard". this is an old english term for the bar on a ship. This should appeal to my target audience in a variety of ways. The first reason that this should appeal to my target audience is because it means a bar. This will stereotypically appeal to a young audience because as Hall said in 1904 "Youth must have excitement and if this is not at hand in the form of moral intellectual enthusiasms it is more prone to be sought in sex or drink”. This suggests that the thought of a bar will attract a young audience to my magazine. The second reasons why this may appeal to my target audience is because it relates to boats. Over the years boats and the sea have been an important to the people who live in Cornwall. Traditionally a lot of Cornwall's industries revolved around the sea including the fishing industry. this allows the audience to relate to my magazine because the title Bard is about ships. The final way in which it may appeal to my target audience is because this term uses old English which is something which may appeal to my target audience.

Another possible name for the magazine that I came up with was "Spindrift'. This name connotes energy and excitement which are key themes for my target audience of young people. The term spindrift is about the spray the comes off of waves. This will allow my audience to relate to the sea, which is important for a magazine based in the Cornish region.

I have also come up with an idea for the name of my double page spread article. I thought of the heading 'There's no board'em in Trebarwith" This title should appeal to my target audience because the play on words can be seen as fun, and as Hebdige said 'youth as fun', suggesting that young people will like anything which can be seen as fun. The use of the word Board should also appeal to my target audience because surfing is an extreme sport which is something which my target audience finds stereotypically appealing. This also relates my magazine to the sea which is important.

Specific ideas for Cover story and double page spread article

For my cover story there are many different parts of Cornish life which I can include. However, for the cover I will include an article on Cornish fisherman in the coastal village of Boscastle. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first reason for this is because traditionally for hundreds of years fishing has been one of the largest industries in the region and is something which Cornwall is famous for. This will allow my target audience to easily relate to this magazine as they will be able to instantly recognise that this magazine is specific to the region which they are interested in. The reason I have chosen to use the town of Boscastle for this is because in 2004 there was a rage flood which caused a lot of damage to the whole village. This made the village famous across the country. This will interest people from all over the country and I will be able to talk about how life has changed for these people.


For my double page spread there is a lot of content which I could chose to include. However, I feel that the best article for me to include and to talk about is about the beaches in Cornwall. This is because this is something which the region is famous for an people will travel from all over the country just to visit the stunning beaches of this part of the UK. The beaches are also very important to the locals of this region because it has been an important part of their lives since they were children and a lot of them will have many happy memories of the beaches and will still visit them regularly. This will allow my audience to relate to my magazine. The beach that I have chosen to include is one of the most famous beaches on the north Coast of Cornwall. This beach is called Trebarwith Strand. I have chosen to use this beach because I can talk about it's stunning scenery and the sort of activities which can be done there. This should appeal to my target audience because this sort of article is specific to this part of the UK, which is important for a regional magazine. 

Chosen Institution

There are four main producers of magazines in the UK. These are Hearst, Conde Nast, Bauer and IPC media. Between them they publish some of the most popular magazines in the UK. However, these companies will be unlikely to publish my magazine. This is because they are nationwide companies which distribute their magazines across the whole of the UK, which would not be suitable for my magazine. This is because my magazine will be aimed at an audience located in the region which the magazine is about with a small secondary audience of people outside of this region but who are still interested in the lifestyle. This makes me feel that they would be unlikely to publish my magazine because the audience for it is not large enough for the cost of them producing it, making it unfeasible for them to do so.

After looking at the four publishers in more detail I have come to the conclusion that the best of them for producing my magazine would be IPC media, if I want to distribute my magazine on a large scale. This is because this company has a large variety of different lifestyle magazines which it publishers making me feel they are the most experienced of the four when it comes to producing magazines of this genre. IPC media publishes many different lifestyle magazines including Country Living, which shows they have had experience with these sorts of magazines. They also produce magazines like Shooting UK, a magazine about hunting. This strikes me as  a fairly small market to aim for. This makes me feel that out of them all this company is the most likely to agree to publish my magazine.

However, I feel that this company is too large so I will need to look at more a more regional publishing company who will distribute it to the correct audience for the style of magazine. This suggests that I will need to use a publishing firm based in Cornwall. DC Media UK publishes local magazines and newspapers in the Cornwall area including Cornwall Today magazine, a magazine of the same genre as the one I am looking at producing. This makes me feel that this is the best publisher for my magazine as they have experience in the magazine genre and will be able to distribute the magazine to the desired audience. 

Shot types and lighting

When designing my magazine I will need to gather certain photos to use on all products including the cover, contents page and a double page spread. For this I will need to use a variety of different shot types in order to attract my target audience to my magazine. For the genre of magazine different shot types will represent the theme behind the magazine in a better way, and different settings will require different types of shot.

One of the main types of shots I will be using for this magazine is an extreme long shot as this will show the surrounding and scenery of a place better than any other giving the reader a clearer idea of what to expect when they visit the area. This kind of shot will be used when I'm doing rictus on things like the beaches in Cornwall where it is vital to present the setting of some of the most beautiful beaches in the region which I am setting my magazine in.

This is the sort of shot that I want to include in my magazine. This is an extreme long shot of a coastline. This is good because it gives the person viewing it a clear idea of what the area is like.

However there are many other different shot types which I can use as part of my magazine but some may not be suitable. They are as follows:

Extreme close up- this is where the camera is zoomed right in on one object like the image shown above. However, I am unlikely to use this kind of shot type because it will not usually be included in this genre of magazine as they usually don't display much which is not applicable to a magazine in the lifestyle genre.

Close up- this is like the image shown above and only shows a close up image of an object which if it is a person usually only shows their face. This again would be unsuitable for use on a magazine in a lifestyle genre.

Medium close up- with a person this shot type usually shows the subjects shoulders, neck and head. This again may be unsuitable to use in my magazine.

Medium shot- this shot type is one I may consider using in my magazine I am going to use a model in some of my shots. This kind of shot will be good at showing the person standing in some of the areas which I want to include in my magazine such as the beaches.

Medium long shot- similarly to the medium shot this hot type will be good at showing a subject in a certain setting. However, this one may be better because it shows more of the setting than the medium close up and shows more of the subject.

Long shot- this kind of shot is good at showing a subject and its setting and will be ideal for use in a regional lifestyle magazine

Lighting

By far the most common shot type used in magazines of the lifestyle genre, are extreme long shots showing landscapes of certain areas. There are many different ways in which I can use lighting to give my shots certain effects. The first type of lighting which I could use is side lighting.

In this type of lighting the source of light comes from the side. This type is very good at creating a long shadow and contrast. It can also add depth to the image. 

Synopsis of original ideas

After completing my target research and looked at professional publications I have decided to continue with creating a regional magazine in the lifestyle genre. This is because of my target audiences being so varied, which means that there must be something which would appeal to them. The lifestyle genre isn't specific to a certain target audience and will allow me to include content which will appeal to a wide variety of people.

In my initial idea post I said that I wanted to use a simple layout and colour scheme which follows the conventions set by professional publications of this genre. After doing my research I have come to the conclusion that this would be the best thing for me to do. My research shows that my audience wants the colour scheme of my magazine to insist of white, blue and black. This is good because it follows the conventions set by magazines such as Coast magazine and the colour blue has a strong relation to the sea and sky which is important for a magazine based in a coastal area like Cornwall. Other parts of my research show that my audience seems to like a layout which consists of predominantly images with small amounts of text, which is typical for a youth audience, which is my primary target audience for this magazine.

In my initial ideas post I had some ideas about the sort of content that I wanted to feature on my magazine including articles on food and drink, things to do and fashion. After doing some target research I have discovered that the hobbies of my target audience includes listening to music, reading, watching films. This suggests that I should include articles about these activities. However, these are difficult to put into a regional magazine as these are generic activities which are not specific to a particular region. For this reason I will try and include these stories wherever possible but I will include stories specific to the Cornish region, with articles about beaches for which the region is famous for. In my initial ideas i have talked about including local attractions. I may do this when it comes to making my magazine as these may be factors which attract people to the area.

Typography research

Typography

Typography is a vital way in which professional publishers and editors can attract their target audience. In this post I will analyse the ways in which they use font styles, type sizes and colour in order to attract their target audience to their magazine. I will look at the common conventions set by professional magazines and how they are used to attract the desired target audience, so that when I come to designing my own products I have a good idea of how to use typography to appeal to the audience I want to appeal too. Typography can be used to appeal to an audience and help them relate them to the magazine. In this post I will look at how typography is used on three different products, which are on a cover, contents page and a double page spread. 

The first thing Im going to analyse is a cover from Coast magazine. This cover looks like this:

The first piece of typography on this masthead which comes across much stronger than any other piece on this cover is the masthead. The first thing that causes this masthead to have such a large impact when compared to the rest of the typography featured on the page, is the size of it. This masthead takes up approximately an eight of the page, this allows it to stand out from the rest of the text and is easily the most noticeable part of the page. This is important to the audience as they can easily detect which magazine it is. 

The next thing which makes this masthead which stands out is the fact that the whole masthead is in full lowercase letters. This leads me to believe that this magazine is aimed at a young audience. This is because the fact that they are all lowercase letters makes the magazine come across as fairly informal. This can be seen as fun by the audience which will stereotypically appeal to a young audience. This is because as Hebdige said, ‘youth as fun’, meaning that anything which can be seen as fun will stereotypically appeal to a young audience. 

The font style of this masthead also leads me to believe that this magazine is aimed at a young audience. This is because the font is more blocky when compared to other mastheads featured on other magazines of the regional lifestyle genre. This sort of font will stereotypically appeal to a young audience again because it can be connoted as being fun. This makes the magazine come across as fairly informal once more as the style is not too fancy and stereotypical of a magazine from the lifestyle genre. However they have chosen to use a serif font which is typically a formal font style which makes me believe that this is aimed towards the higher end of the youth market as it comes across as more sophisticated and less childish. 

The colour of this masthead is can be seen as fun. this is because the colour used is fairly bright which will usually appeal to a young audience as this is what the will stereotypically find appealing. The colour used is the colour blue. The colour blue is used to represent the sea and the sky. This is an important theme for a magazine such as Coast, as it allows the readers to relate to the subject behind the magazine which is all about life in Coastal areas, which are by the sea. The colour blue also connotes intelligence which may be used to suggest that this magazine is full of intelligent stories which should appeal to a wide audience. 

The cover-lines on this cover use a variety of different styles of typography. This may be used to make the cover come across as fun, which will usually attract a young audience. This variety can come across as fun because it doesn’t seem to follow a uniformed style and layout when compared to coverless featured other magazines of this genre. 

The cover-lines use a variety of different fonts. The mot common sort of font used on the cover lines is fairly blocky which again leads me to believe that this magazine is aimed at a young audience. The other font used is more typical for a magazine of this genre as it comes across as more formal, which leads me to believe that this could be used to attract an older audience as well as a young one, or may be used to appeal to an audience of a higher social class, because this sort of font comes across as much more formal.  

The cover-lines also use a variety of colours including two different shades of blue and the colour white. The colour blue is a very important colour when trying to attract this kind of audience as this easily allows them to relate to theme of the sea and sky which are really important themes to areas with Coastal regions. The colour white connotes perfection. This may be used to suggest that these articles are perfect for their readers, which may be used to attract them to the magazine. 

The size of the typography used on these cover-lines are all similar in size. This may be used to suggest that no article is more important than another. This may be used to appeal to a large audience as it makes no article more important than another making the readers feel that their interests are of equal importance. 

The cover-lines also use symbols in them, such as a heart instead of the word love. This may be used to suggest that this is aimed at a younger audience rather than an older one as this comes across as informal and fun, which wills stereotypically appeal to a young audience.

This cover uses both pugs and plugs. There is a pug around the barcode in the bottom left corner of the page. The text here features a product number and nothing else. Here the font is typical for a barcode and uses no other form of font style or type. However, there is a plug featured on the page in the form of the sticker featuring the 20% off. The font used here is different to the fonts used on the rest of the page but keeps in with the rest of the styles featured on the page. Here the colour black is used. The colour black is used to connote power, this may be used to suggest that they are a powerful magazine, which can get good deals for their customers. 

The small text used on this page is not very apparent as the size compared to the cover-lines doesn’t really differ and is very hard to tell the difference. The typography is also the same making even harder to tell the difference as it has the same font and style. 

Typography also plays a very important part of the contents page of a magazine. The heading for this page is also very informal and can come across as fun. The first way in which it does this is from the font choice. This font is very informal as it is simple and not too fancy which will help a young audience to relate to the magazine. This is because a magazine which is too formal or comes across as  it is not likely to appeal to a young audience. This means that this may help them relate tot this magazine. 

The next thing which can be noticed about this heading is the size. The size is similar the the size of the masthead featured on the cover which I previously analysed. This again makes it stand out from the rest of the typography on the page.  The colour of the heading is the colour white. The colour white is sued to connote perfection. In this instance it may be used to suggest that this is the perfect magazine for people looking for a regional lifestyle magazine. 

Another way in which this heading comes across as informal is because it is in all lowercase letters which again leads me to believe that this magazine is aimed at a young audience. This is because it can be seen as fun.

The sub headings used on this page use a bold font style. This is used to make this information stand out from the rest of the information on the page. This allows the readers to easily find whether or not their is a story which interests them. In line with the main heading all of these subheadings are in full lowercase letters. This makes it come across as very informal and can be seen as fun, which again makes me feel that it is aimed at a young audience. 

The heading on this page is more formal than on the other two pages which I analysed. This is because it used a capital letter at the start of the first word which already makes it come across as more formal than the previous two which I have analysed. However, there is more colour variation in this heading than the other which I have analysed which makes it come across as fun. The colour orange connotes the energy behind the colour red with the happiness behind the colour yellow. These are key themes for the a lifestyle magazine as these are key themes for everyday life. The font style is also fairly informal and can be seen as fun as it is more blocky than your typical fonts. The font is also a sans serif font which comes across as less formal and less sophisticated which makes me feel that this is meant to come across as a fun article, which would stereotypically appeal to a young target audience, consequently this is something to consider doing when producing my own products. 

Genre Codes and Conventions

After analysis some covers, contents pages and double page spreads from some popular professional magazines of the regional lifestyle magazine genre, I have come to the conclusion that they follow certain conventions which allow them to appeal and attract their target audience. In this post I will outline the conventions which the magazines that I have analysed follow, with their covers, contents pages and double page spreads.

Covers

The first thing that all of these covers has in common is the style of the masthead. There is nothing too fancy and there are no graphics used. Instead there is simply just text. The font of the text is not too fancy either and is a simple font which you can easily find on most word processors or graphics packages which you can use to design covers like the ones shown above. one of the mastheads uses a tagline alongside the name of the magazine whereas the other two just simple display the name of the magazine. Only one of the magazines uses a colour as part of the masthead. However, this may because they are trying to attract a different kind of audience than the other two are.

Another similarity between all of the magazines is the colour white features on all three covers. This may be because they are trying to connote that their magazine is the perfect magazine for their readers. Light colours are used on all three of the magazine covers which suggests that I should choose to use these colours when it comes to me designing my cover.

Another convention that all three of these covers follows is that they all use an image as the background of the magazine and then the content is layered on top. This content includes the masthead, feature articles and anything else which features on the cover.

Every background image used on these covers features a location by the sea with two featuring images of beaches and the other one features and image of the seaside town of Looe which is famous for its stunning beaches and typical Cornish setting. They probably all feature these images because the Cornish region is famous for its beaches and tourism. This allows the audience to relate to the magazine. this means I should include this sort of image on the cover of my magazine.

Another convention which all of the covers follow is the inclusion of a barcode in bottom right hand corner of the magazine. The purpose for a barcode is so that when people want to purchase the magazine the item can be scanned by the reader and the price can be easily found from this. In order to make my cover seem more professional I should consider using a barcode.

All of the magazines above feature a couple of different font styles This is something I may consider doing when it comes to me designing my own magazine.

On all of the cover for the magazines there are articles featured specific to the region which they magazine is based in. They also include articles on things to do in the area or local event coming up, which is something I should consider doing when it comes to designing my products.

Contents Page

The first convention which I can see with all of these contents pages is that they all have white backgrounds. This again may be used to connote that their magazine is perfect for their readers. This means that I should use a white background for my contents page when it comes to designing my own products.

Two of the magazines include large main images and two of the magazines includes a series of smaller images. This suggests that the best combination for me to use is a combination of one large image with a series of smaller images relating to some of the articles featured in my magazine.

Another convention they all follow is that they use two pages whether it be a double page spread of two pages back to back. This suggests that there is a lot of content featured in the magazine and they need the space to advertise the articles to the widest possible audience.

Another convention they all seem to follow is that under each article featured on the contents page there is a small description of what the article is about so the audience can easily tell whether or not the article will appeal to them. This may be used because the audience for a lifestyle magazine is so varied they need to feature content which will appeal to everyone. This suggests that I should o this when I come to designing my own magazine.

Here all of the designs are simple and easy to navigate making it easy for the audience to find articles which meet their interest, which is something I feel attracts someone to a magazine. The articles which they have included in the magazine are also relevant to the area which the magazine is based in and are about topics which their primary target audience would be interested in, thus attracting them to the magazine. 

Double page spread

The first convention which I can see is that two out of these three magazines double page spreads uses an image as the background for the page with all other content layered on top of it. This means that when it comes to designing my double page spread that I should consider doing this and when I go and take the photos I need to consider my feature article

Two of the magazines also use little amounts of text rather than big chunks of it. This suggests that they feel large amount of text will bore their readers. This is something I should consider when designing my own products.


The article featured in these double page spreads are all based on topics which the target audiences for these magazine would find appealing. This will attract them to this magazine.

Target audience research

Target research analysis for a regional magazine

In this post I will analyse the results I have collected from a survey about a regional magazine. From these results I will identify my target audience for my magazine based on the information, which I have collected. Once I have identified my audience I will then have an in depth knowledge of how to attract them to my magazine based on the results of the later questions in the survey. Here are my results:

These results show that the most common group of people who completed my survey were young people. This is because that 35.29% of the people who completed my survey were aged under the age of eighteen. This should be my primary target audience as I will have an in depth knowledge of how these people see themselves and what they will find appealing on a magazine. The rest of these results of fairly spread out meaning that I won’t get a clear idea of how to appeal to this audience making it difficult for me to choose the content and features to include when I design my own magazine.

These results show that the majority of people who completed my survey were male, with 64.71% of the people selecting this option. This suggests that I should predominantly aim my magazine at a male audience, as I will have gathered information about what this audience finds appealing.

These results shows that 41.18% of the people who complete my survey were of a white/Caucasian ethnicity, which is by far the most popular category selected by the people completing my survey. This means that I should make this group of people my primary target as I will have an in depth knowledge of what these people find appealing.

These results show that by far the most popular category for the people completing my survey was the heterosexual category as this category had 68.75% of the responses. This suggests that I should make this my primary target audience as I will have been able to gather an in depth knowledge of what appeals to them. I will also be able to use media theory stereotypes to try and appeal to this audience.

These results show that 29.41% of the people who complete my survey had an average household income of under £25,000 per year. This suggests that these people belong in social grades C1-E. This means that I should make these people my target audience as I will have gathered an in depth knowledge of what appeals to this audience.

These results show that the most popular colours to include on a magazine for my target audience were white with 58.82% of the responses, and blue and black with 52.94% of the responses each. This means that I should probably use these colours when it comes to designing my own magazine.

These results show that my target audience spend a lot of time reading books and listening to music. This suggests that to appeal to these people I should include content about these subjects as it would allow them to relate to the magazine better and may make my magazine come across as more appealing. Other things which my target audience find appealing include watching films and watching TV.

These results show that the majority of people believe that they belong either in the Reformer category or in the Explorer category. This means that I should use content and features, which will appeal to them. This will include stories about discovery and intellect.

These results are fairly spread out and there are four categories which are the most common result. These are Cynics, Egoists, Groupies and Rebels. This means that I should include content, which will appeal to this audience.

These results are very even as they all have similar figures. This means that this should have no effect on the content, which I choose to include.