This project has been beneficial in many ways to me. One of the biggest benefits I have found from this is that it has helped me with my production skills and broadened my knowledge of media. When it came time to start making my magazine cover and table of contents I truthfully thought it was going to be an easy task because I have seen many magazine covers before but, I was opened up to more than just the looks of a magazine. I learned about requirements and names of essential stuff to include and from here I began creating. This is where my skills really developed, I became very efficient in the application Canva. I knew how to do some basic things on the site before this project but now, I can make more advanced, customized, and professional work. I know have the skills to even start a project from scratch on there and still make it look good. I also learned some basic skills from InDesign that were helpful but, I really flourished in Canva. I am very proud of my improvement and look forward to using these skills in the future.
Another important aspect of my magazine that helped develop my production skills was research. Throughout this project, I was constantly faced with many questions and decisions to make where I always found myself researching the correct answer or for help. I have done what seems to be extensive research on all parts of a magazine from how to make a masthead to how to mass-produce my project. This has been one of my favorite parts of this project as I have a whole new knowledge of the vast world of magazine design and production. I can now identify parts of a magazine and give information on advertisements and distribution of medium, especially through technology.
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How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
My product, a magazine, engages with audiences by having a rather specific target audience. Since my target audience is young adults/teens that are new to cooking or want to get simple, cheap recipes the most important way to engage them is with the content. I want to keep the magazines very modern and like normal magazines so people will still be attracted to my magazine and not feel weird for buying a “different” magazine since it may be regarded as a child-like magazine. This is why it will be very important to always keep up with the latest trends so teens will continue being engaged and wanting to read “Stuffed”. While this may be hard because trends do change almost every week it seems with social media it is essential to stay relevant, since food magazines for teens are so rare. For example, some of the biggest food trends right now, according to Tik Tok, are coffee recipes and an African dish called FuFu. My magazine would take these trends that would normally be regarded as silly by other more advanced food sources and use them to draw people in. We will also continually market our meals as inexpensive and simple so beginners will be more likely to engage with us and not feel so lost, especially college kids. The last way my magazine will engage with audiences is related to distribution. Distribution of media is quite possibly one of the most important aspects of any type of media. With the introduction of the Internet and Social Media, I have been given all new types of way to distribute my magazine. The first step into distribution for my magazine is creating a website online, this will be free and very important in establishing my brand. On my website you will find lots of information such as a description of the magazine, access to some free sample articles and issues, a place to get a magazine subscription for physical or digital copies, a list of other places to find the magazine (stores or apps), and lastly include links to our social media. If someone purchases an online subscription to “Stuffed” they will get a password to log onto the site where they can access and read magazines whenever they want on any device they log into. This will give them a digital copy that was posted through the website, but for physical subscriptions or buying in store we will have the magazines mass produced at a printing company. They will contain the same stuff as online. One key part of our distribution will feature our social media aspect. The magazine brand itself will have accounts on apps such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This will help spread the word to our target audience of our brand in a way we know we can reach them. These profiles will have links to our official website for people to decide how they want to purchase from us. One way of distribution I would like to use is making a partnership with SnapChat. By reaching out to them I would like to be featured on their “Discover” page where they post stories from various magazines. This would be ideal for my magazine since most of my target audience in very active on SnapChat so, this would help make a name the brand among them and these smaller and modified stories will lead to people wanting a subscription of the magazine so I can make more money. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
The product I have created is a magazine titled “Stuffed”. This magazine is about food and will contain recipe ideas, cooking tips, product suggestions, and more. But, where this magazine will differ from all others and truly challenge normal conventions for food magazines is that this magazine is geared more towards teenagers. All the content will be simple, easy to follow, rather cheap, and most of all relatable. You could look at this as a beginner magazine since the content will use basic meals and try to elevate them but, the meals are going to be very simple so younger audiences are guaranteed to like them. The simpleness and low prices to make meals inside will attract young adults, especially those in college, as they find our magazine the most beneficial to them. There are no magazines that are specifically geared towards young adults so the only competition “Stuffed” faces are keeping up with trends and staying relatable to keep inspiring young adults to cook! This magazine represents the social group of young adults. Often teens are regarded as lazy because more often than not we will choose to eat fast food than make our own but, maybe that is the issue. We were never really taught how to cook because society and the media have placed a label on us where we are either lazy or still treated like babies. This leads to a sense of anxiety in not knowing where to even start cooking, so this magazine will create relatable content that doesn’t baby down information or makes things too difficult. The look of the magazine will stay modern and sophisticated so people can still display them and not feel like they are buying a children's book. It will give the sense of buying a normal magazine but, include more relatable content to their skill level. Overall, this magazine represents a whole new concept in the cooking world of teen/young adult orientated cooking. I tried to take my own pictures of ramen I made at home and even ramen I got at restaurants but, I couldn't quite get the pictures to look good on the front without changing everything. I think the best idea for the magazine is just keeping the current picture I have from the internet. It already matches the font colors and positions. Source for Cover ImageI found this image of ramen noodles on a food blogging site called "The Vegan 8"
There was no given date that this recipe was posted but the author of the blog and recipe is Brandi, she is a vegan chef as well an author and photographer. For the bottom flip up on my cover there is a small image of pickles I am going to keep on there although it is not mine. The green is perfect for the dark green highlight and i like the way the pickles are placed, it looks good in the triangle corner. Pickle Picture on Cover SourceI found this image online from a website called "goldbelly". Since this site is actually selling these pickles there is no date or photographer listed to give credit.
LINK: https://www.goldbelly.com/guss-pickles/22273-ny-sour-pickles-1-gallon When I looked at my previous drafts I saw that I always blurred the background image a little so, I experimented with leaving it un-blurred (as seen below) but, I did not like the grainy look it gave the picture. I think the slight blur helps to bring attention to the words without losing the picture. Im going to keep the slight blur on the image.
I have been working on making changes to my magazine cover over the past few weeks and this is the design I have as of now. I really do like this one better that my first. I used a new font for the title that was bolder and squished the letters together, I think this was perfect to really capture the essence of "Stuffed". I tinkered some of the fonts and their colors and sizes to better fit the screen. My favorite thing I added was the "page flip". I got this idea from a few magazines at a grocery store where they put a triangle on the front with an image to make it seem like the pages were being folded. I think this looks very interesting and definitely draws attention to another story inside. I still need to work on the bottom left corner a bit and start taking my own pictures. But, I am very happy with my progress right now!
I decided to add an orange border to my cover. I added this border to really make my highlight color of orange pop in the magazine and I like how it frames the cover. I also think that having this small orange border on all my covers could be the "Stuffed" signature look.
Since I switched my first draft over to Canva from Word, I have made a few simple changes. First I had to adjust my fonts to those available to me on Canva, I actually like these new fonts a lot better, I think they fit the theme and cover better. I also adjusted some colors on the page and make the accent colors stand out more.
I have decided to switch from Word to Canva to make my cover page, and most likely all other elements of my magazine. Canva is a platform online where you can access many templates, designs, and elements to make graphic deigns. I have used Canva before to make small flyers so, I have some knowledge and experience but, I have never done a project this big.
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AuthorAbigail Hopper Archives
April 2021
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