IPC Media Research

Today I researched into one of the 9 biggest publishing houses called IPC Media, I recorded my information into word and then copy and pasted that onto InDesign.

I made this research page a double page and then made 4 columns and put my text into the columns to look professional, I then created a title and changed the font and colour and surrounding colour of the title and put a colour on the background of the title so the title stands out. I then found an image of a magazine front cover on the internet and placed a circle on my page and placed the image in the circle and filled the frame proportionally.

What types of magazine and target audiences has IPC been associated with over the years? Some of the magazines that IPC has been associated with are Country life, What's on TV, Rugby World, Nuts and NME. Being associated with these magazines shows that the target audiences are both men and women, typical men would read magazines like Nuts and Rugby World and typical women would read magazines like What's on TV and Country Life, where as NME is for both men and women.

Why might IPC be an appropriate publisher for a new music magazine? IPC would be appropriate for publishing a new magazine because there target audience is both men and women so they can include all types of music to attract the target audience. They publish magazines from Sports magazine to Fashion and home design to gossip therefore attracting a wide audience so IPC is the best for publishing new material.

What sorts of genres of music/types of magazines might they be likely to publish? The type of music magazine IPC would be most likely to publish could vary between rock and RnB. This is because NME is leaning towards rock and men and attracting a specific audience, whereas gossip magazines like Now and Look magazines are leaning towards RnB lovers and women and targeting that specific audience as they are gossip magazines and they have information on celebrities such as Rihanna and Beyonce therefore IPC can publish various genres of music magazines.

Why might alternative publishers like Bauer be appropriate?  Bauer would be appropriate for publishing new music magazines because Bauer is well known for the wide variety of radio channels and young modern magazines therefore targeting at a younger audience. They show different types of media that are aimed at the younger generation therefore Bauer will be able to attract the younger audience and get the new material known quickly. They can publish many new material and with the younger generation being how they are the magazines will become popular quick.

This is my IPC media research:

Experimenting with Photoshop and cropping and title

I added a title onto my page in InDesign by creating a text box and changing the font and size, I then went onto swatches and changed the colour of the title and the colour outside the title, I then experimented with adding shadows to my title.

Experimenting with Photoshop and cropping

Here is an InDesign page I have created with photos I have cropped in Photoshop and placed into InDesign in various shapes, I think this will help to make my work more realistic.

To create this I took some photos of the college and put the memory card into the Mac and saved them onto my account, I then uploaded one onto Photoshop and cropped it to how I liked it and then saved it, I then went onto InDesign and created a square to upload the photo onto and then did so, I then had to fit the photo to the square so nothing was missing, I repeated this method, each time changing the shape of the photo, like a rectangle or circle, I then exported the file in InDesign so it was saved as a JPEG so I could upload it onto my blog, learning this skill will help me a lot in creating itneresting and more realitic work.

Essay and research

This genre of magazines which is teenage girls seems to have some clear conventions:

The colours stand out and compliment each other and seem to be girly colours like pink, there is a reduced palette so the colours almost become the signature colours for that issue.

The body language seems to be inviting and friendly. The model is stereotypically a girl who looks her best and is the biggest thing on the cover, the facial expression conveys an emotion that is nice and happy and don't tend to be sad.

The model can give a direct message so the eyes are following you all the time which is a good effect and helps connect with the audience. 

The models are wearing informal, casual clothes and the magazine is promoting fashion and clothes which will attract a lot of girls, the fashion is affordable not ridiculous making it more relatable to the audience and giving the magazine a good repuatation.

There is an interesting story or intriguing story on the front cover to attract the audience e.g. from Cosmo Girl “I saved my drunk friends life”, this is a positive story and will make the audience want to read it.

There is a good and clever use of language, e.g. from Cosmo Girl “Fashion Freebies” which is alliteration, there is rhythm e.g. from Seventeen magazine “Fashion tips and beauty tricks” and from Bliss “Passion for Fashion”; this makes the magazine look and feel professional when the audience reads it.

The font is quite casual and the colour is normally a girly colour to match everything else and attracts a female audience and use slang to relate to the audience.

The tone of the magazine is fun and carefree, but does have some serious elements which is a good mix in creating an effective and successful magazine.

The magazine normally has something to do with relationships and school so more teenage girls can relate to the magazine.

Here are the magazine covers I looked at to help with my research:

Essay- To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer?

Magazine covers can give out plenty of different messages, it depends on who we are and how we interpret it, if you are a teenage girl reading a magazine like Cosmo Girl, you are going to feel pretty down about yourself seeing a beautiful girl on the front cover and it might make girls think they need to look that good, the girl is always skinny or slim which can promote the wrong message that people should be that size and lead to unnecessary dieting and a unhealthy life style. That brings me onto my next point, there never seems to be anything about healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle, they seem to focus on dieting and staying slim which is irresponsible as people are going to think they have to diet to fit in, it is going to make boys expect girls to be slim and wont settle for anything else which is so wrong.

Magazines can promote fashion and make girls and boys think they have to buy clothes like that and if they don't then they are going to look cheep which is not true, not many teenage magazines promote high fashion clothing which is good but magazines like Vogue do, but that is what you expect from that type of magazine. Although it will make people think they need to have those clothes, it might inspire people who are unemployed to get a job and earn the money which I think is actually a good message to give out for people to work especially teenagers who need to have some experience.

Another social ramification of magazines is that they give out the message that you need to have a boyfriend or girlfriend to be happy which is not the case and that can lead to people just being in a relationship to fit in. Also magazines never seem to say much about or for gay people unless it is a gay magazine which can single them out and make them feel insecure when they shouldn't

Although teenage girl magazines can help girls through things and entertain them, they can also drive them into the wrong direction, there are many bad hints of sex and trying to make yourself look better for boys, which I think is bad considering the average age for magazines like Cosmo Girl and Bliss is around 14-15 so magazines can be held responsible for under-age sex and teenage pregnancies. 

Magazines can also make boys look very bad or a necessity, some magazines say you don't need a man or women in your life, and some put pages and pages about how to look better for them which you should not need to do and show photos of them with they're top off which can be a bit much for some magazines and makes them look like a piece of meat which is wrong.

Magazines can include celebrities stories about how they were misfits or bullied or things like that which can give teenagers hope if they are in that situation that not everything is going to be as bad as life at school and maybe one day they can become famous and I like that message.

Magazines can not be held completely responsible for some of the things we do but they do play a important part and I think they should really think about they're audience and what are they are putting into peoples heads, I would like to see more about healthy lifestyles and less on sex if I'm honest, this is for both girl and boy magazines but mainly girl magazines. 

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/4990907/Teen-magazines-are-sexualising-readers-says-watchdog.html

www.associatedcontent.com/article/30544/popular_teen_magazines_and_their_possible.html

Experimenting in Photoshop

Today I learnt how to use some aspects of Photoshop, I learnt how to crop in a photo, use various edits and rotate an image. I also went on InDesign and put the photo on a page and put the photo behind a title and change the color of the title to suit me, learning these new skills will help a lot in the future with my Media coursework.

Here is the photo I edited in Photoshop using a filter, the top image is on InDesign with the title on it.

Magazine cover

This is the magazine cover I tried to post previously but it didn't work.