Unit 14 - Magazines

Art-Fashion Magazine Research

The genre I have chosen for the magazine I am going to produce will be an abstract fashion magazine, combining both art and fashion together. It will be an independent, high quality magazine much alike Vogue. It will focus on both fashion and lifestyle. I have researched a variety of independent fashion magazine covers to give me some ideas and inspiration as to the different layouts, colours, fonts and images I could use when producing my magazine. Below are a list of art-fashion, abstract and independent magazines I found and looked through. 

• Vogue
• Aesthetica
• Bazaar
• W Magazine
• Tantrum Magazine (one front cover)
• here & there magazine
• wonderland magazine

Purpose Of My Magazine

The purpose of my magazine would be to inspire young women as well as showing them that they are more than the stereotypical woman that society portrays everyday. There's so much unnecessary pressure on women and this magazine is really here to empower them and show that it's okay to have an interest in both fashion and art (plus other topics like film, music, sports, etc).

Front Covers

All of the front covers I have chosen look abstract and unique, which is something I really want to strive for when I produce my own magazine. The front covers are female too, so when I take my own photos for my magazine I'll have a female model. In addition, the covers are all very vibrant and eye catching. A lot of independent magazines use 'unknown' or 'up and coming' models like magazines such as "Wonderland" and "Aesthetica", whereas "Vogue" often uses celebrities who people will instantly recognise. I think the main reason why smaller independent art-fashion magazines use up and coming celebrities is due to the fact that they want their audience to focus more on the clothing rather than who is wearing them, but at the same time still giving the model a publicity boost. I really like the minimalism of the front covers but they still entice the reader into picking the magazine up and reading/looking through it. 

More Alternative Magazines

I decided to look for more magazines that fit in with my magazine genre. Since it's a more of a alternative and specific genre, the magazines I looked at are independent and less well-known than Vogue, for example. 

i-D Magazine
i-D is a bimonthly magazine that focuses on fashion, music, youth culture and art, which is what my magazine primarily focuses on too. In all of their front covers, the main focus is the model, who ranges from being a popular actress, actor, musician, fashion model or a lesser known celebrity. Another point about their magazine is that it's very minimalist; there are no huge coverlines that stop the audience from seeing the main image or the masthead. In addition, the editor of the magazine is Terry Jones, who was the former Vogue art director; this means you can easily see where the minimalist aspect comes from, as Vogue likes little text but crisp HD and artistic photos of designer clothing. Very monochrome colours are also a big feature within this magazine.

i-D Media Kit
Ages: 18 - 34
Male: 45% Female: 55%
Monthly UVs (Unique Visitors): 278,300
Social Reach: 1.44 Million

Dazed Magazine
Dazed is another bimonthly magazine that focuses on topics such as fashion, music, art, film, literature and politics. It's very much alike both my magazine and i-D magazine, but expands the topics of what they talk about (than just creative subjects). Dazed continues the theme of minimalism, showing focus on only the cover model, which are bigger celebrities than on i-D. However, the masthead is a lot bigger and takes up more space, meaning that the audience really sees the masthead first before the cover image. There are more colours within this magazine too, which relates a lot to my magazine; i-D is very monochrome, whereas Dazed plays around with colour palettes and themes, often using colours that don't exactly work together to create an abstract and artistic look to their magazine; this then is more likely to catch the audience's eye.

Dazed Audit
Target Audience: Stylish, innovators, media literate opinion formers. They know about styles, brands and products and look to D and C as a credible and reliable source of information.
Frequency: 6 issues per year / Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug, Oct, Dec.
Publisher: Waddell Ltd
Genre: Lifestyle and Fashion
Price: £4.50

Specific Audience:
- Hipster types
- Age 18-30
- predominantly female, about 1/3 male
- likely to have attended college or art college
- study art-based subjects
- consider themselves fashionable, maybe even trend setters
- regularly visits galleries like Tate Modern, Saachii Gallery, etc (all in London)
- in B-C2 class bracket
- can afford to spend £4.50 on a magazine

Clash Magazine
Clash is a music and fashion magazine based in the UK which is published four times a year. Although it primarily focuses on musicians, their front-covers reminded me a lot of my magazine and i-D. They focus on the cover models, often using close ups and wild editing to make the front cover look abstract and unique, as seen in the third front cover. Their front covers also vary in style with each issue, some are easy to tell the genre, some are more abstract, some are more conventional, etc. The first front cover features a lot of the typical conventions of a magazine, the bold masthead, the coverlines, the barcode, etc, and even the front image looks generally modest and normal. However, the second front cover begins to take away those coverlines and start experimenting with colour, hence the neon, and the third front cover takes all of that away, leaving just the masthead, front-cover and barcode. Overall I feel like the second front cover relates to my magazine the most, as it has the medium shot and experimentation of colour that I have in one or two of my front covers.

Clash Media Kit
(Audience): 71% are aged 21-31 - they are in employment and own plenty of music, films, books, gadgets and clothes.
Male audience: 56%
Female audience: 44%
ABC1 Audience: 86%
They equally enjoy print and digital and find them to be equally important.


Content List

Genre - a hybrid magazine of fashion, art and lifestyle

Masthead Ideas - Imagine, image, Arcadia, arcad!a, eden, Eden, eDen, allure, a l l u r e 

Pictures - female model, abstract, unique, mask?, lots of vibrant colours, pictures of scenery

Interview with a fashion designer

Coverlines about newest collections of clothing, lifestyle advice and tips, places to explore in the world, hidden gems in abstract countries - botanical gardens to visit

Social media - on instagram, twitter, snapchat? Definitely including a website URL, for example: edenmagazine.co.uk

Reviews on latest accessories or clothing, etc.

Use vibrant colours such as orange, yellow, green, blues, reds, etc. Not typical magazine colours.

Minimalist look but eye catching and colourful.

Target Audience (Media Kit)

Age: 18-25
Gender: Female
Class: D, C2
Specific Target Audience: College and Uni Students

The target audience for my magazine will be for 18-25 year old women who are into independence, feminism, art, clothing, straying away from the norms of society as well as experimenting at the same time. Mostly young women will read the magazine, thus it will have fashion and beauty but presented in a more abstract way. My magazine would also attract to college and university students who are taking courses in creative subjects, such as art and textiles as well as film, drama and dance. Within the magazine, it'll include a variety of different things to appeal to a wide audience, but still sticking to that creative side that usually does not get enough attention, or may be deemed not as important as other things. It's shedding light on how fast the world is evolving in creative studies.

Technical Considerations
The fact that I will be printing off my magazine onto A4 paper means that the pictures will have to be of high quality, with minimal blurriness. In addition, the text will have to be of the right size, not too big and not too small. I want my magazine to have enough content in so that my target audience will read it and want to buy it if it was in a shop. I'll have to leave big enough bleed lines too so no text goes off the side of the page.


Analysis of Double-Page Spreads From 'Vogue'

These two double page spreads are from Vogue. Vogue has a variety of different layouts and articles throughout it's magazine to attract to different people. It has full pages of advertisements for expensive fashion brands which are bright and colourful; the reason why they take up an entire page is so that the reader can see every little detail of the clothing or accessory. Many expensive and trendy fashion brands do not need much on their advertisements for people to know that they are who made the clothing, the name really says it all. Sometimes they do not even have to put the name of the brand on there, as the audience would immediately recognise the logo. It could be inferred that the variety of the layouts that Vogue has throughout it's magazine could refer to the variety they have in terms of clothing, models, types of articles and subjects they talk about, etc. Going back to the first double-page spread of the advertisement, the colours are extremely vibrant and the female model is wearing more colourful clothing than the others. This could be because Vogue wants the audience to immediately focus on her rather than the other people in the photo, as the dress really takes the spotlight. In addition, it could also be because she is the most popular model in the photo. 

Above are two double-page from the magazine Elle. In many ways, they are following the same kind of layout as Vogue as they have full-page images of the model and the clothing, as well as in the next double-page spread, they have similar white space and positioning of images and text. I really love the general minimalism structure to both magazines but still keeping that original and abstract theme.

Production:
Production Schedule

Creating A Masthead

Here I have chosen the name for my magazine 'Arcad!a' and also started to think about which fonts I would like to use. Right now I'm not sure which would suit best, as I'd have to take some pictures first and see which colour theme I'd like to go with. I included a lot of bold fonts that would stand out from the main image when I do get around to designing the front cover. In addition, a lot of the fonts are abstract and striking, which I think will fit in with my 'fashion-art-abstract-and-unique' genre. I'm really leaning towards using 'LIBRARY 3AM, Lment-v02, and Honeymoon Avenue Serif'. I found all of these fonts on 1001fonts.com.

I started experimenting with the colour of my fonts, but I'm not entirely sure which one I would choose yet. I'm leaning towards blue or orange, but I will have to see which colour would best fit my colour theme on my front cover. For example, it will depend on what the cover model is wearing, or the background. Of which then, I'll use a similar colour for the masthead.

Creating Coverlines

• COLOURFUL, ABSTRACT, UNIQUE: every colour is in this season!
• pride month + valentines day - 45 cute things to buy for your partner!
• looking at art in a different perspective
• interview with upcoming model _______ or fashion designer Alexander McQueen

I made these 3 coverlines above, showing some of the articles and content that will be in my magazine. I really like the colour themes of the valentines day one as well as the 'cosmic clothing' too. I had some difficulty picking colours that looked good for the 'pride month' coverline as there are a lot of different colours, although I think the colours are good for now. I may pick different a different colour scheme for all of the coverlines depending on the main picture I'll use for the front cover. 
- 11/03/19: I decided to not go with any of the coverline images that I created. I felt having them in boxes or shapes were too much and too distracting on the front cover. Instead, I chose to just write the text and put that on the front cover which looked more sophisticated and less bulky. In addition, I added "45 Valentine Gifts for your Partner" on the front so that it does make some reference back to the more common fashion magazines you see in stores, using the numbers to show there's a lot of choice that the reader can look through and choose from. 

Images:

(1st + 2nd Photoshoots)
(The images that are not of the model are backgrounds I was planning to use)

The reason why I took and chose these images are because I want to go with a very art-abstract fashion magazine that goes beyond the norm. This meant that I needed abstract images for my magazine. The first photoshoot I did was more for a darker fashion magazine, something more edgy and classy at the same time. The second photoshoot is more for an art magazine, featuring paint powder to show the abstract side more clearly, and also the poses are abstract too. I really like the aesthetics of the first photoshoot as there's high-key lighting in a lot of the images and it's also more sophisticated than the second photoshoot, as the second feels more teenage and childish in a way - the reason why I think it's teenage and childish is due to the mask and the paint powder, it doesn't really fit with any of the coverlines I chose for my front cover and would not fit with any of the double page spreads that I created.

3rd Photoshoot

I took this photoshoot after I'd taken the other two. Instead of using the same model, I asked my cousin instead to give my magazine a new model and some variety. I actually took these pictures in the cinema and found a nice neon light that I think suited the abstract genre very well. The first three images against the red wall didn't really turn out how I imagined and so I tried to find a different place. Magically, I found a neon wall that made my images look interesting and unique. However, the only real problem with some of the images is that some are blurry and/or out of focus, so there's only about two or three images that I could use for a magazine front cover. These images below are the ones that I think are the best from the photoshoot and that I could use for a magazine front cover. 

Consent Form

Creating and Experimenting (Magazine Covers)
1st Front Cover:

- 11/03/19: I really love this front cover, even though it was the first one I ever created. The colour scheme stands out and would attract anyone's eyes instantly. There is enough focus on both the masthead, the front image and the coverlines as everything stands out but does not overcrowd the page at all. I've added all the conventions of a normal magazine, such as the barcode, date and website, as well as common conventions of a fashion magazine in the coverlines. Does this target my audience well?: I think it targets my audience quite well. It's very abstract and creative, the images and coverlines both promote a stereotypical fashion magazine as well as a lifestyle magazine and it's mostly the colours that present it differently, but I like that. 

2nd Front Cover:

-  This the second front cover I created using the photos from my first photoshoot. Although it's a similar angle, I used different props and a different background that I think worked really well. I love the fact that the background is just the gradient coloured filter I put on top instead of anything else taking the focus away from the model. I love the colours too, as it's a different colour scheme but the orange text fits well with the flower. I think this front cover looks more professional than the other but both would stand out in a store. Does this target my audience well?: I think this one targets my C2/D audience well as it features a young model, although she isn't showing all of her face, the colours are aesthetically pleasing and would stand out on a shelf in a shop and also, I imagine a lot of students who are in college or university would be interested in this kind of magazine as it strays away from the typical fashion magazine. College and Uni students are the specific audience I want to target with my magazine. 

3rd Front Cover

Does this target my audience well?: Having looked at it again, I don't think it does. Although I like the filter on top, and it promotes the alternative genre, the image I chose does not look eye-catching, nor does the colours. Due to the different colours in the filter, it was hard to find colours that stood out and it didn't fit the fact that I wanted a colour scheme in my magazine. The masthead and coverlines blur into the background, and especially with the second coverline and the date and price, its hard to read. This means that when printed out, if the colours blurred, the text would be even harder to read and thus it would not be accessible to everyone, including people who had difficulty reading. 

4th Front Cover:

Does this target my audience well?: I think the abstract-ness of having the flowers on her hands, making it look like they're growing on her, has some interest and quirkiness surrounding it, but I don't feel like it would target my audience very well. The first font I used definitely did not work with the image, it looked very out of place. Even then, the second font I used didn't do the front cover much justice.

5th Front Cover:

This is my 5th front cover using an image from the 3rd photoshoot.

Writing the Articles:

(Interview with Alexander McQueen)
I chose to create an interview with a famous fashion designer in my magazine because it relates and fits in with the front cover image. I'm saying that the fashion designer created the clothing that the model is wearing and shows that this is his latest collection, which is a more edgy and grunge style of clothing. Edit: I have now decided to change this to an interview with the cover model, Leah Johnson.

Double-page Spread(s)
1st Double-page Spread:

This is my first try at making my own double-page spread. I wrote an article about the interview with Alexander McQueen, which is one of the coverlines on my front cover. I then added two images from the same photoshoot as the front cover so everything would link and wouldn't look out of place; by using the same images, it makes it look like my friend is the model for Alexander McQueen's latest collection. However, I did have some trouble with picking what colour scheme to go with as I wasn't sure what colour I wanted the text, the title or even the filter on the images. I am quite happy with what I decided to go with, I think the font colour still needs to be changed but for now it's a starting point. In addition, I also added an advert on the second page of the double page spread. I wanted to put it in because fashion magazines most commonly put a lot of adverts in their magazines, and so instead of talking about more clothes, I wanted to show a focus on health and saving the environment/world at the same time. Since young adults would be reading my magazine, they are the people who are most commonly nowadays trying to save the planet. 
I really like the second version of the double page spread more due to the fact that the colours look more balanced alongside the advert. There are some points in the interview where it's hard to read the text, but I'll change that for the final double page spread that  I print. 

2nd Double-page Spread:

This is the second double page spread I have created but this time I used different images and a different layout. The left page is an advert for Gucci, I wanted to make it as simplistic as possible due to the fact that magazines like 'Vogue' feature that a lot. The right page is then the interview with a fashion designer that I previously featured in my last double page spread. I think the only real problem with this is that my target audience, D and C2 would not be able to afford Gucci designer clothing, meaning that it would be weird to see an advert for designer clothing in this kind of magazine. I really love the colour schemes and the page with the interview so I think I'll keep it like that for now but will work on changing the advert image. 

3rd Double-page Spread:

I like these double page spreads a lot more due to the fact that they're colourful and it reaches my DC2 audience. Having a Gucci advert didn't seem right so I changed it to a Missguided advert instead as it suits my target audience better than designer clothing. I also changed the colour scheme to match the colours of the advert, but in my final design I will most likely change the blue background to something easier on the eyes. 

4th Double-page Spread:

This is the fourth double-page spread that I have created. This time, however, I changed the content a lot and I like it a lot more. Instead of having one page dedicated to an advert and then a page for the interview, I used both pages for an interview with the model instead of a fashion designer. Originally, I had an interview with Alexander McQueen and then said that the model on the front cover was just a model for his clothing. I changed this so that now, the model on the front cover and double-page spread is a famous celebrity(model) and who is working with Alex McQueen on his newest collection. I kept the same colour scheme and aesthetics as the very first front cover that I created. 

Copyright

In all of my front covers and double page spreads I have added flowers or plants somewhere on the page. For every extra image I haven't taken but added onto my magazine, I made sure that it did not have a copyright and that I could indeed use it. 

For the advert on my second double page spread I made sure that the image I was using was copyright free. I got this image from a website called unsplash.com.

Picking My Final Designs

I really like the front cover and the double-page spread together, but I think the main thing I really do not like is the fact that the colour scheme doesn't really match. I really like that I've used three different images that were all from the same photoshoot, so it shows continuity. In the above images too, I changed some things so everything matches and links together. I changed the original coverline to 'EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE LEAH JOHNSON' so that the coverline now matched with the double-page spread of the interview with Leah, the model. In addition, I also changed the colour of the main image on the left and added the photographer on the right side. 

I think these work together really well, in terms of the colour scheme and aesthetics. The main thing I do not like though, is the fact that I have used the same image for both the front cover and the double-page spread. Although some magazines do feature this, I want to show a variety of different images from different angles, which this does not show.

Printing Out My Magazine
At the time I printed my magazine out, this was what I had chosen for my final design. After I evaluated it and realised it wasn't going to work, I chose a different front cover that I had created previously. None of the images below are edited, thus the colours are extremely faded and not as vibrant as I had hoped. There was also a lot of errors in terms of the text being too close to the side of the page (the bleed lines weren't big enough) and also the main image in the double-page spread was not of high quality. Instead of going back to my magazine and adapting things, I decided to pick a different front cover that fit with my theme and fit with my genre easily, and I also completely changed my double-page spread. 

My Final Design:

After looking at all the different front covers and double-page spreads I have created, I decided that these two were the best and suited each other very well. The front cover I originally wanted to use and printed out didn't turn out how I imagined. In print version, the colours were faded and it was hard to tell what genre my magazine was. I then found a front cover that I had worked on a while ago and added things to it like the tagline and amended some of the coverlines. I love the front-cover I chose as I think it targets my audience well and shows my 'alternative art-fashion' genre more clearly. The double-page spread that I chose in the end was actually the very last one that I made. This one really included everything that I had learnt from my previous double-page spreads, and I think that's why I liked it a lot more than the others. I amended the title and used a different font than what I had used in the others and it proved to be a lot easier for positioning and colouring. In addition, I left bigger bleed lines due to the fact that the ones I had left previously were not big enough when I printed my 4th double-page spread out. I then decided to use the same image again as it shows a clear link to the front cover and you can easily tell who the model is and that it is the same magazine, if you had to tell the two apart. I left the page numbers out on my double-page spread due to the fact that I wanted the two pages to focus primarily on the interview and the model, and having page numbers at the bottom both wouldn't have fit nor would it have looked good; this is a common convention of fashion magazines, especially Vogue, in which they leave out the page numbers on certain pages. In addition, I left the whole right page dedicated to the image I was going to use for my front cover as I feel like the quality was good, so it would look good printed out, as I changed the filters to be more subtle and faded, so even if the colours did happen to be faded when printed out, it wouldn't really be a problem. Having chosen these two specifically for my magazine, I think it targets my audience really well and it focuses both on images and text, which is something I really wanted to balance out and not be on-sided.

Evaluation:

What did you do well in the production management?: For pre-production, I decided on what genre of magazine I wanted to create very quickly. This meant that I could start researching magazines that fit my genre of abstract fashion, or alternative fashion. I looked at magazines such as: Aesthetica, Bazaar, W Magazine, Wonderland and most commonly known, Vogue. I then described what I liked about a selection of the front covers I chose from including the fact that they all stood out in terms of colour, and the fact that a lot of them were quite minimalistic, especially Vogue. In pre-production too, I already had a number of photos from a photoshoot I did a while back which fit the genre I chose; this meant that before I had even chose what I wanted to include in and on my magazine, I already had pictures I could start experimenting with. This was a photoshoot that featured the same model. The pictures I had taken too had a variety of different angles, colours and backgrounds, resulting in the fact that there was a lot of experimenting I could do with the photos. I also had created quite a detailed content list, consisting of the name of the magazine, the genre, types I photos I wanted and what I wanted to include in the double-page spread. I think the only thing I could have improved on more in pre-production was more analysis from different magazines as well as analysis of the front cover and the double-page spread.

In production, I was fast to pick a name for my magazine, which ended up being 'Arcadia' but more abstract, so I included an exclamation mark where the 'I' was meant to be, so 'Arcad!a'. I looked at several different fonts, a lot of which I used in the different front covers and double-page spreads I created, and I also looked at using different colours for each of the fonts, consisting of bright colours like blue and orange. At this point I wasn't sure of the colour scheme I really wanted, but it was a starting point. I worked quite quickly to create my coverlines, but realised that the images I designed for the coverlines were not going to suit my magazine. Instead, I evaluated the images I had created and explained why it wasn't going to work for my magazine. I, however, did end up using the wording for the coverlines, just not the images. In February, I also managed to take another photoshoot in a different location, this time it was inside opposed to the last photoshoot which was outside; I liked the idea of the model wearing the masks in the first photoshoot so I continued this in the second. The fact that I had two photoshoots already meant that I had a lot of time to create different front covers and double-page spreads, all different from the last. I ended up creating four front covers, all using different images, different colours but keeping the layout the same. I feel like the layout worked well and was typical of an actual magazine. I also critically evaluated all of the front-covers and double-page spreads I created. Although I had it quite easy with the front-covers, the double-page spreads proved a real difficulty for me in terms of what I wanted to include and what I wanted it to look like. I started off with having an advertisement in my double-page spread, and although adverts are common in fashion magazines I really wanted to dedicate the two pages to the interview with the model (originally this was a fashion designer). In terms of improvements, I think I definitely spent too much time working on the double-page spreads. Instead of creating mock ups first, even just of the layout, each time I spent hours upon hours working on a singular double page spread and including everything I could. This wasted a lot of time when I could have dedicated it to improving previous ones. 

In post-production, I spent time going over the front covers and double-page spreads I created and improving them. In addition, I printed (what I thought at the time) was going to be my final front cover and double-page spread, only to realise that when I printed them off, there was a lot of errors. This included the fact that the text was too close to the edge, meaning I had to go back and make the bleed lines a lot bigger that I had originally planned. In addition, the main image in the double-page spread was too blurry, meaning that I had to experiment with using other images or designing the page differently so that the image looked better. I annotated a lot of this on the printed version. In addition, if I did this again, I would definitely have created a production schedule, meaning that I would have had some kind of plan to stick to, or try at least. This would have resulted in not wasting as much time when I was creating the double-page spreads especially and would have left more time to print off the magazine, annotate it and change it, so I wasn't leaving everything till last minute. 

I think the most important thing about my work and blog is the fact that it definitely shows progress; this goes for my double-page spread especially. I knew the kind of layout and theme I wanted for my front cover, but in terms of double-page spreads I didn't really know where to start. To improve, I could have spent more time researching different double-page spreads from the variety of magazines I chose from, meaning that I would have had a better starting point than what I had. I think from the first double-page spread I created to my last, it does show a journey of me experimenting and testing out new ideas, of which some of them worked and some of them didn't. 

Did you have a contingency plan and was this implemented?: I did not have a contingency plan. Instead of thinking about the issues that I might face, of which I did, I instead worked through them and talked about them on my blog. These issues included blurry images, not big enough bleed lines, not having a starting point for my double-page spreads, etc. However, I do think I realised the problems quickly and worked around them, resulting in a better front cover or double-page spread. Throughout my blog, you'll see possibly the same double-page spread or front cover again and again, but each time I will have changed numerous things that would look better and would reach my target audience more successfully. 

Is the magazine fit for purpose?: My magazine is fit for purpose, it successfully reaches my target audience due to it's codes and conventions. For example, I used a young model on the front cover and featured her in my double-page spread because my magazine target audience is for young people, more specifically 18-25 year olds. The colours I chose, which were bright and colourful, were chosen specifically to make the magazine abstract and to stand out from the others. It doesn't look like a regular fashion magazine, and I don't want it to be; the whole idea of alternative is to stray away from the 'norm' and to look different from the others. By adding images of flowers and plants into my magazine just added to the alternative factor and made it look a lot different to, for example, Vogue, which is very neat and precise. I included all the conventions of a regular magazine, such as a masthead, barcode, price, coverlines, etc, so it does look like it would be featured in a shop, ready to buy. I think if my magazine was to be printed and distributed into shops, the only real improvement that I discovered when printing it out to annotate is the colour. In printed format, the colours looked faded and quite dark, meaning that to improve this, I would have to make the colours brighter or print it on other pager, like glossy paper for example. 

What looks good and what elements work well?: I think, especially in the front covers I created, all the elements worked together really well. I created a colour scheme for each of the front covers and stuck to it, meaning that everything looked good together. This idea of a colour scheme is also featured in Vogue magazines, of which all their front covers feature a new, original colour coordination that works really well together each time and goes as far as not just the editing, but the clothing the model wears as well as the camera shot. Having an interview on my double-page spread, dedicated to the front cover model fits in with Vogue too, as often they have interviews with models, actresses and celebrities. A lot of my content and colour decisions were inspired by Vogue, and a lot of the minimalism on my front cover, the added images such as the flowers and the photos I took of the model were inspired by Wonderland. I really tried to combine the alternative style of Wonderland with the popularity of Vogue into my magazine, and I think it worked out well. 

Appropriateness to specific target audience: In terms of what elements appeal to my D, C2 target audience really stems from the images and colour. The photos of a young model would appeal to college and university students, which is the very specific type of people I wanted to target while creating this magazine. The colours I chose work well together, meaning it doesn't look like a usual fashion magazine that might only have the colours pink and white throughout. Relating to reception theory, my target audience would take a preferred reading as there isn't anything controversial that I featured in my magazine, such as topics like politics. People from the target audience may take a negotiated reading, as they might not like the content or the colour schemes I have chosen, but apart from that I don't think anyone would take an opposed reading. For the uses and gratifications theory too, it would very much link to information and entertainment. My target audience would read my magazine to inform themselves about news, events, upcoming models that are making a break through, latest fashion collections, etc, and they would entertain themselves by reading the magazine, looking at the interesting and odd photos or content and going onto the website to look at more content or watch videos. 

Overall, I think I did really well working on my magazine, 'Arcad!a'. I focused and paid attention to the genre and target audience I chose and worked from it, selecting content, images and colour schemes that would attract and entice people to read my magazine.