Photography

I have learnt a lot about magazines and how audiences view them.  In this post, I am going to say what I have learnt about this.

Magazine front covers include essential information such as a barcode, issue number, date and price.  There may be enigma codes to tease the reader and make them want to read the actual story.  Sub headlines are used for cover lines.  The colour palette usually follows a 3 shade colour scheme.  My front cover will have a white background with black, green and blue as the three colours.

There are four poses which are used conventionally for women.  An 'Invitational' pose suggests mystery and is used to intrigue the reader.  'Super smiler' involves the model smiling and demanding attention.  'Romantic/sexual' has the model hinting at availability, but not necessarily in a smiling, happy way.  The final pose is 'Chocolate box' which is when there is a full or three quarter shot of the face.



Super Smiler

   

Romantic/Sexual

Invitational

Chocolate Box

Covers are the frontline of an increasingly competitive marketplace.  The point of sale comes when you are holding the magazine in your hands, so the cover will need to be eye catching for you to pick it up in the first place.  Magazines have a niche market because their target market depends on topic and genre. 

It is effective if only one image is used on a front cover, especially if it's bold and dominant.  I am going to have only one image on my cover.  The main article of the issue should be privileged, whereas information that is not used to sell the magazine (e.g. barcode) should be kept out of the way.  Sell lines should be justified to either margin.  They should be on the left and right hand sides.  I am going to keep my sell lines to the side and the barcode will be at the bottom- out of focus.

One way of deconstructing texts is to consider them as a sign.  These signs work together to create a code.  These are known as semiotics.  Producers encode signs, whereas the reader decodes them.  Denotations are what can be seen or heard.  They are factual and can be agreed by everyone.  You cannot argue with them.  Connotations on the other hand, are an opinion and can be argued with.  There are also codes to follow when looking at magazines.  Primary codes include language and images.  Secondary codes include fonts, colours, logos, layout and background.