Guess Who's Back, Back Again

We’ve officially started working on our portfolio projects! This is both a challenging and exciting task so I’m determined to work really hard to make a product that I’m proud of. Yesterday my group decided that we would be doing a beauty/fashion magazine. We decided against a travel magazine because we felt that we would be limited to nearby locations, such as Fort Lauderdale and Miami for our content. Although these places are very diverse and have countless of cool spots, we thought that this would make all of magazines too similar to each other. We also thought that, given our busy schedules, a beauty/fashion magazine would be more feasible since we all have makeup and clothing in our homes. What also led to this decision is that we’re all really passionate about this genre. Valentina is an amazing makeup artist, Malena wouldn’t trade her accessories for the world, and I love to experiment with new clothing trends. I’ve always enjoyed flipping through beauty/fashion magazines, looking at the different articles and models wearing the most ‘in’ clothing. Ultimately these factors led us to our final decision, so I’m glad we all had similar experiences with the genre.

I can’t wait to start taking pictures and making the layout. I have several ideas for the cover design, images, and article content. But all in due time. For now, I’m doing more in-depth research on beauty/fashion magazines, since I’ve already investigated the genre in a previous blog post. I found that most magazines in this genre have monthly publications; so in order for every member in our group to have distinct content, we’ll be assigning each other a month within a specific season. For example, if Malena would like to do summer, she can have either a June or July publication. As for me, I’m really interested in fall beauty/trends, so my publication could be from September, October, or November. This way, we can all have a similar overall ‘theme’ (cover layout, table of contents layout, article layout, etc.) while having a different color scheme (warm, darker tones for fall/winter and brighter, vibrant colors for spring/summer).

One thing that I’d love to create in my double-page spread is a collage, cutout, or messy look with clothing or beauty products. I’m really interested in how engaging these pages are, especially the ones with the makeup that’s neatly spilled (oxymoron?) on the white background. Something that I noticed was that most of these types of pages have a color scheme, such as pink products or plaid clothing. I’ll be drawing inspiration from these magazines:

Harper's Bazaar

BRIDES

       

Black Hair

Vogue

In my magazine, I plan on implementing this in my double-page spread, such as having one page with the collage look and the other with text explaining the clothing or beauty product choices. For example, the article could be about “What to Wear to Thanksgiving Dinner” so the collage would have semi-formal, warm toned attire and makeup products. The article could be about how to pair the pieces to make an outfit depending on the reader’s personal style.

Some things that our group needs to keep in mind as we move forward:

Many magazines place their cover image on top of their masthead, so some letters of the masthead are not visible behind the model’s head. Oftentimes this is not a problem because the magazine is well-known so the target audience does not need the full masthead to be seen for it to be visible. Here’s an example from InStyle Magazine:

However, this is not a feature that we can include on our cover because our magazine is not well-known, so the full title must be visible for it to be understood. Therefore, we must place the masthead on top of the cover image, like this example from Fashion Magazine:

My group is planning on maintaining a white background for the table of contents and double-page spread. This is not only logical because magazines have a white background to reduce printing costs, but it also helps draw attention to the actual content of the page and creates a clean, simple look.

For our target audience, we are planning on creating our content for 15-30 year-old middle/upper class women. Our cover image will be a female and our two-page spread will be about women’s fashion and beauty trends. Additionally, we will be displaying our social media handles (Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and possibly a blog) on one of our pages, such as the table of contents. This is another strategy we'll be using to target our audience since they are usually active on social media and enjoy having fashion and beauty content easily accessible on the internet.

That's all for now! See you tomorrow ;-)

Catalina

Image Citations:

Fashion Staff. (2014, September 08). FASHION Magazine October 2014 Cover: Blake Lively. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from https://fashionmagazine.com/fashion/fashion-magazine-october-2014-cover-blake-lively/
Illuminare Cosmetics. (n.d.). Celebrity Spotlight. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from https://www.illuminarecosmetics.com/Articles.asp?ID=120
IMAN Cosmetics Europe. (2015, July 24). Iman in Black Hair Magazine UK. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from https://iman-cosmetics.fr/blogs/news/iman-in-black-hair-magazine-uk
Pandit, R. (2016, May 23). Top 10 Fashion Magazine In The World. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from http://www.oimfashion.com/worlds-best-fashion-magazine/
Racquel Thomas. (n.d.). Vogue Layouts. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from https://www.racquelthomas.com.au/filter/fashion/Vogue-layouts
Sarah Brock. (n.d.). BRIDES. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from http://www.sarahbmakeup.co.uk/brides-magazine.htm