Research

To help me design my magazine cover to suit a target audience I did some research using survey monkey. Survey monkey is a questionnaire site where I can create my own survey to find out what people prefer on a magazine cover. One of the questions I had asked people was how often they read magazines, 50% answered saying they only read magazines monthly; this influenced me to make my magazine brand a monthly issue this means it would just update its audience on seasonal trends. 90% of the people who answered my survey where females because it was mainly females that read magazines and preferred fashion magazines, this helped me base my cover on the right target audience. The target audience is between 18-25 years old because the clothing is not too expensive however they will need to have a good amount of money to be able to buy the clothes. 55% of the people that answered my survey said they would only pay £1.00-£2.99 for a magazine so I priced my magazine at £2.99 so people would be able to afford it. I had also looked at other magazine covers from Vogue and other fashion companies; I noticed they use a 3 colour scheme so the magazine cover doesn't look to over powering. They use expensive colours like gold to make the magazine seem sophisticated and expensive, the main image is usually looking directly into the camera to make the audience feel like they are dragging them into the magazine. This is why my main image is looking directly into the camera to make the audience feel a personal connection with the audience. The clothing the model is wearing is normally glamorous and fashionable outfit to make the audience feel like if they buy the clothing from the magazine they'll look like the model. For my main images the model is wearing clothing that matches the season, for the Christmas magazine she is wearing a Christmas hat and colours that relate to Christmas. I also noticed on big brands like Vogue their cover lines rarely talk about gossip, they have the odd article with an interview with a celebrity however most of the cover lines are about fashion and beauty tips. This influenced me to use cover lines based on fashion and beauty tips so my target audience would buy the magazine to find out how to "get better skin in 8 hours".  The mastheads are usually recognizable and the first thing the viewer will read, I have used a serif font to make the magazine appear sophisticated and expensive. On the Christmas magazine cover the masthead is red to connote Christmas, on the autumn magazine cover the masthead is a golden colour. Even though the colour is different I have used the same font so it stays recognizable. The colours used for my cover lines also relate to the theme, I have only used 3 so my cover doesn't become to over the top and childish. 

The link to my survey monkey page is https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N9ZQP5X

2 page spreads

This 2 page spread is from a fashion magazine, for the background they have used the two colours that are most in style at the moment. On the top left corner there is a strip of professional photographs from a fashion show, all the clothes are black and white so they fit in with the theme. On the right there is a drawing of a model in black and white clothing kicking the middle of the page to make her look powerful. This two page spread looks sophisticated and the clothing look expensive which can connotote that the magazine is aimed at a higher class because you would need a lot of money to buy the magazine and the clothing within the magazine. If the magazine is aimed at a higher class then the target audience would be about 21-40, this is because this age range would be more interested in expensive fashionable clothing and would have the money to buy them.

 This 2 page spread has used celebrity endorsement, on the left it is a black and white portrait of Lady Gaga; an extremley popular singer. The right page is all writing however it has been made more interesting and eye-catching by hightlighting the letter 'L' in red through the text. The colour red could connotote love and passion, which can represent Lady Gaga's story being about her love life. In the top right corner it has her name however 'lady' is in a different font and hasnt used any capital letters. Whereas 'gaga' is all in block capitals, this could connotote how unique and different Gaga is as both words are completley different to eachother.