Vogue have a readership of 1,237,000 people with the average age of the reader being 36 years old of the printed version. The average age to view Vogue on a tablet is 34 years old and for the website is 28 years old. In terms of the demographics, 40% of the audience fall into the social class of AB, and 70% are in ABC1. Vogue's audience is 95% female as it caters mainly for female fashion. Overall, Vogue targets their magazines to high class working women at an average age of 36, and the average age changes depending on what format the reader is viewing the magazine content.
In terms of the masthead, 'Vogue', has been chosen because it connotes fashion and class as the word actually means 'style' in French. The name and meaning is very fitting to the genre as it is known to be the worlds most influential fashion magazine. Vogue is aimed at a higher class audience, and all aspects of the masthead show this (the font, style and colours). This means that the magazine isn't as diverse as other fashion magazines such as Cosmopolitan and aims at one audience in particular. The masthead follows conventions in that it covers 1/8 of the page to allow audiences to recognise the magazine easily. The font in particular suggests the genre of the magazine as it has a classy style, similar to Bazaar fashion magazine. This particular issue was released in December near Christmas, so the gold colour used for the masthead is very fitting. Also for this issue, there is a gold swirl pattern that features within the masthead as well as the the 'Star dust' text at the bottom and in decorations throughout the page. This helps give the impression of a Christmas feel again because of the colour and the star pattern within it.
The model featuring on this issue is Emma Watson. The mise-en-scene portrays her as classy and beautiful with the theme of Christmas because of the way she is dressed with a bow. Although my magazine will not be a Christmas issue, I will still need my model to look classy and powerful for my front cover. The image of Emma Watson used is a medium shot showing her face, but also how she is sat. This doesn't follow magazine conventions as a close-up shot is usually used on the front cover of magazines; but they probably chose this shot so that the viewer could see what she is wearing - a short festive dress. This links with Mulveys Theory, 'The Male Gaze' that states that women are used for the pleasure of the male viewers in the media. The way she is positioned suggests that she happy and pleased, but she also has a mischievous smile which is fitting with the heading 'Comes of age'. Her clothes connote class but also fit with the Christmas theme.
The colour scheme used on this cover also connote a Christmas feel with gold, black and cream. My magazine will be a summer issue, so my colour pallet will have to connote summer but also Cornwall. The gold colour on this cover gives the page a magical look and makes the reader instantly think of Christmas. My magazine will have to make my readers think of summer and show off Cornwall in the summer season.
The fonts used on this cover page compliment each other because of the use of bold for headings and an italic old script font for details about what is featuring in the magazine. Another font is also used for this; a simple light font - this could be used because if the italic font was used every time, the page may look too busy. The font used for the 'Star dust' text at the bottom is quite plain and modern; this works well because of the illustration that is featured around the text. The text on this cover advertise party season clothing and make up advice which will attract a female reader because they will want to look their best at Christmas. Some of the lexis on the page also suggests that this is a Christmas issue because they read 'heaven sent', 'star', 'sparkle' and of course 'star dust', which are all words that the reader would associate with Christmas time, and the reader will also think that this is what they could be if they were to buy the magazine. In my magazine, I will have to include stories and words that make the reader think of a beautiful summer time in the county of Cornwall, but also base them around fashion.
This particular cover incorporates illustrations similar to some other Vogue Christmas magazines. It's a theme that seems to only be used at that time of year on Vogue, but I would like to try and incorporate illustrations on my magazine so that I could learn how to illustrate in Photoshop - this will help me for the future as I am considering Illustration courses in further education. I particularly like the way this magazine has the illustration mainly at the bottom of the page, but also has it going through the masthead. This makes the layout look more interesting and ties the page together.
The layout of the page consists of a medium shot image in the background with the text forming around the outer sides of the page leaving a clearer view of the model behind. There are not any smaller images to show anything about the content of the magazine on the cover, but I have found that this is quite common for fashion magazines. The smaller headings and information are placed to left and right sides of the model of different size fonts depending of what should jump out at the reader first. There is also the 'star dust' text at the bottom which is quite large because it relates to what this issue of the magazine is about: 'the super star issue'. For my regional magazine, I will need to include a word that suggests to the reader what the main theme of the issue will be.
As a conclusion, I think this magazine cover would work well for my inspiration for my regional magazine because it has a lot of features that I would like to incorporate into my magazine cover. Obviously I will not be able to photograph and write my feature article on a real star model, so I will have to adapt my cover and story so that it is based more round a fashion story. The elegance and class in the main image is something that I would like to portray in my own cover image, as Bentley said, "the creative process is the rearranging of the old and making of the new".
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