Supporting Document- Print Produc

 

Supporting Document- Print Products

Statement of intent 

My target audience is socially conscious, 16-25-year olds, who are middle to upper class. Socially conscious to me suggests that these are people who are interested in the current affairs all around the world and not just where they live. This audience has high aspirations and have a smart, credible, and clear career plan ahead of them. They are most likely to go to university, are high achievers and very social. I have aimed my products at the more left winged side of this audience and my current affairs magazine and website have a more left political bias as I was inspired by the Big Issue and my own political beliefs. This audience is trendy, often using social media and shopping in vintage/thrift stores, they also are very politically active and will take part in protests, petitions, and charity challenges. 

To represent the audience in my products, I plan to use a red to outline the masthead, I want this to be clear to the brand as red is often associated with the left wing (labour). I will also make the topics covered in the contents page as “politically correct” or progressive/liberal. I want my audience to be represented as trendy, moral, progressive and as people who are always trying to aid or educate others. I will plan to do this through the topics I put in my contents page and the main cover story.

In the past magazines were simply a printed product you could buy in store, whereas now they are still sold but the magazines can be found online. Brands now have websites, apps, and email subscriptions as well as multiple social media links. Magazines are now largely accessible, whether its via physical print or on your phone. Magazine house styles are now a lot more unique and bolder as it has to be recognised and stand out across a range of platforms. The New Internationalist is an independent media company and describe themselves as “dedicated to socially conscious journalism and publishing.” Their publishing is politically correct and more left wing and I believe they would be a good publishing brand for my magazine. 

I want my magazine to be more progressive and I don’t want it to follow the traditional codes and conventions of a magazine. I will have one main image and headline on the front page, there will be no cover lines or supporting images, this is because I want people to be intrigued and enticed into reading the magazine. I want to use a font that is modern, simple, and easy to read, this makes the magazine more appealing and sophisticated but simple. I will use the same font on the website, and I will use the masthead from the magazine as the logo for the website to maintain a brand. I will use the same colour scheme of red, white, and black. 

First print product prototypes

The front page of my first magazine is very similar to what it would’ve looked like if I had actually created it. If I had access to photoshop the text underneath the masthead would’ve been closer together and the magazine as a whole would’ve looked a lot neater. The magazine cover doesn’t follow all the codes and conventions of a traditional magazine, for example I have a very small amount of cover lines and only one main image, as I want to reflect the idea of a progressive audience. The font I chose was used across both magazines and the website to create a brand identity, I chose Grotesque as it is modern, simple, and easy to read. The main colour I used for text was black however the colour scheme for the magazine as a whole changed depending on what the topic was about. The first magazine was based on the environment and to reflect that the image had many shades of green and I also made the headline green to fit the theme.

The contents page of the first magazine is slightly different from what I had planned. The text and article names were created as if it was the real thing, however, due to not being able to go out and take photographs, I wasn’t able to include all the images I would’ve liked.

The image that I had planned to go in the box labelled 1 was going to be related to the article ‘Animal activists break into lab’. For this image I had intended to take a close up photo of a friends guinea pig in its cage, the lighting would be bright as if in a lab and the cage bars would be in shot, this is because when you think about animals being tested on in labs a guinea pig is one of the first things that you think of.

The image in the box below this has a picture of trees in it and after realising it wasn’t clear what section the image went with, I added ‘page 16’ in the corner, so it was clear that it linked with the entertainment section. I tried to link all the articles in each section to the theme of the environment.

The image I had planned to go in the box labelled 2 was going to be related to the article title ‘crime crackdown in London’. I had planned to buy caution or police tape from a local craft store and place it over a door, preferably in college as I could then use the lighting equipment available to create a professional looking image of a ‘crime scene’ using a long shot, however, this wasn’t possible due to college and shops being closed.

The image I had planned for the final box was to take pictures of the magazine racks in a local shop to fit with the article titled ‘vegan business that benefits your environment’. The reason I had planned to create this image is because I wanted it to imply that there was a brand that was environmentally friendly with all packaging and papers/magazines. As the shops were closed, I wasn’t able to do this but remembered that I had taken a photo of magazines for a different course, although this image is more dramatic with its lighting then I had planned but it wanted to use it to make sure that space wasn’t also blank.

Second print product prototype

Just like the first magazine prototype the front cover is similar to what I had planned, the only difference is that with the image on the front cover I would’ve aimed to had better lighting in college as I would’ve had access to better equipment. If I had access to photoshop the text underneath the masthead would’ve been closer together and the magazine as a whole would’ve looked a lot neater. The magazine cover doesn’t follow all the codes and conventions of a traditional magazine, for example I have a very small amount of cover lines and only one main image, as I want to reflect the idea of a progressive audience. The font I chose was used across both magazines and the website to create a brand identity, I chose Grotesque as it is modern, simple, and easy to read. The main colour I used for text was black however the colour scheme for the magazine as a whole changed depending on what the topic was about. The topic of this magazine was much more political, and coronavirus related which is why the colour scheme was a lot darker to fit the more sombre mood of the magazine articles. 

The contents page of the first magazine is slightly different from what I had planned. Once again, the text and article names were created as if it was the real thing, however, due to not being able to go out and take photographs, I wasn’t able to include all the images I would’ve liked. The layout was also slightly different and held three images instead of four, I think if I was creating the real thing, I would’ve included four images to have a better brand identity. The Netflix image I took needs to have a page number in the top corner, so you know what section it links to.

The image I had planned to go into the box labelled 1, was going to be related to the article titled Boris v Covid. For this image I had planned to have two people in masks socially distanced on a bench around the college, I wanted to have them both looking at the camera, the lighting would be natural and the camera angle used would be a wide shot so they were both clearly in the shot, however because of lockdown I was unable to do this.

The image I had planned to go into the box labelled 2, was going to be related to the article titled Man arrested after pedestrian dies in crash in Norwich. For this image I had planned to take a wide angle shot of the family car with police tape on it or I was going to try and take a photo of a police car if possible. Since the shops closed, I was unable to buy the tape for this image.