Important things I Must Remember When Creating My Magazine Cover.

When I have chosen my genre of magazine, I must stay relevant to the genre, gender and age. Keeping the target audience in mind is key to make a magazine cover stand out amongst competing producers.
I will also need to think about:

• Masthead (Typography, titles and themes)
• Overall Visual impact  (House Style: font, images and colour) 
• Language (Mode of address, content and structure)

Web 2.0

Just a quick note about Web 2.0 applications, which allow media consumers to also become producers.
The well known and widely used YouTube, Facebook and Blogger would all be examples as each application allows you to create and publish your produce to others.

Audience and Institutions

The Concept of audiences and institutions refers to roles in media. 
Audience - The consumer (reading, watching or listening to the product)
Institution- The producer of the newspaper/magazine/film ect.


It also concerns the relationship between the media and audiences made up from social/cultural groups, who are involved in the consumption the text and the responses to them.

Form, Style and Conventions

Forms and Conventions refer to the forms, categories and conventions used to organise and structure the languages of media products.


The form of media text is its shape and structure and the combination of Micro Elements. For example for a Radio Drama: Dialogue, Sound effects, editing and ambiance are used to create it.


The form of the text is instantly recognisable to the audience style.
Style: The style of the text uses the form.
Eg: Shameless on Channel 4 has a particular aesthetic feel that makes it unique within the genre TV Drama, making its style entirely different to another, such as Holby City.

When producing my own magazine cover  it is important to think about these key questions:
What category of genre/text is it and how can we identify this?
What can we learn from this text from the front cover?
What codes of conventions does it follow or disobey?
What categories and conventions  do we need to consider and use when creating our very own media text?

Narrative and Genre

Narrative

·                     The story line & structure of a media text.

·                     Fictional television & film tends to operate on a simple structure of balance, conflict & attempts at resolution.

·                     Narrative describes the processes of balancing what we see or hear and what we assume in addition.

·                     Narratives are structured within genres which provide frameworks of expectation, predictability and outcome.

Genre

·                     A category of media products classed as being similar in form and type.

·                     Film, magazine, newspaper and television are all media genres.

·                     Types of film (westerns & musicals), magazine (lifestyle & music), newspaper (tabloid & broadsheet) and television shows (sitcoms, crime dramas & soap operas) are also genres.

·                     Genres operate alongside narrative constructions in line with audience expectations, for example, magazines of a particular genre are expected to contain a specific kind of narrative discourse.

Semiotics

The Study of Signs

• Providing a system for de-constructing and analysing visual moving images.
• For explaining the wider cultural choice and combination patterns that generate cultural meaning.

Signifier - Physical appearance/form

Signified - An idea or concept associated with the form. (The meaning being different to the individual)

Denotation - Straight forward description of a text.

Connotation - Associated information, insights and values to a text.

Representation and Ideology

Representation - The process of presenting/showing someone or something. Used to describe the processes by which an image etc. may be used to represent/stand for someone or something, for example a place or idea.

Ideology- System of ideas, values of beliefs which an individual, group or society holds to be true or important; these are shared by a culture/society or groups therein, about how individuals/society should function, this considers the relationship between: People, places, Events, Ideas, Values and beliefs.

Ideal Magazine.

Usually, people (or children if you like) aged around 3-12 years care most about what free gift comes with a magazine, even if they prefer the content of another, they seem to always choose the magazine that includes a bat man water pistol rather than one they would actually prefer to read, just because it only comes with a puzzle. 

But when you grow slightly older, and in some cases, the brain matures, we look at front covers when choosing the right magazine, which is what directed me to this particular one. 

It seems that the Ideal Home magazine is aimed towards older home owners perhaps adults with children, as lots of tips, ideas and inspiring stories are included to do with your kitchen or your child's bedroom.
The language used has a very mature style, again, aimed at older readers. 


This monthly magazine changes the design each time to match the background 'star' room,  but keeps the title (masthead) the same so it is easy to spot amongst others on the shop shelf. The masthead is placed at the top of the magazine cover in a large white font which stands out against the cool blue.

Only when I began to read this did I realise that actually, I don't have my own home to make 'Ideal', a toddlers room to re decorate nor do I have the odd £87 lying around for a new beige lampshade.

 

So yes, I only chose this magazine for the cover, it is sophisticated in its colour themes and has a refined style filling the page. 

The cover also managed to make me feel slightly excited when I read the subheading ‘Choose the perfect carpet’ which just proves how powerful the classy design can be, even if not to its target audience. 

It seems to me that more time, effort and care is spent on the front cover of any magazine. After all, it is first impressions that count with a product and even though you should never judge a book by its cover, sometimes you just can't help but go for one that looks pretty.

I'm sure my mum will read it.