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.