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.