Preliminary Magazine Project

In class we were assigned a preliminary task of creating a magazine cover using the our knowledge of conventions. My group created a magazine centralized around giving advice and tips to teenage girls in our magazine dragonfly. Dragonflies represent a period of transformation and change, which is reflective of the changing teenagers undergo during puberty. We recognized that teen magazines generally had a celebrity on the cover so as to draw the audience's attention. We incorporated the celebrity, Billie Eilish, and her aesthetic of her green hair and the spiders to create a spooky Halloween edition.
We selected purple as the primary color in the color scheme. Purple signifies royalty and we found that it paired well with the combination of black and green of the slime and headlines. We highlighted buzz words such as "hallelujah" and the celebrity "Lizzo" to establish a sense of importance of those words within their articles. In the sweet spot we placed an advertisement of a coupon for a Venus razor. We recognize that hygiene products are expensive and want to provide readers the opportunity to have something that may otherwise be unavailable to them. The inclusion of our slogan "We're not like the other girls" tries to set us apart from other teenage girls' magazine, and the "expert opinion on teenagers" in the banner sets a tone of credibility with our readers.
This magazine project helped me to become familiar with the conventions we learned. I learned that placement of the headline in relation to the cover image helps create anchorage and a sense of balance. The ideal place for an advertisement is in the sweet spot as the reader's eyes are naturally drawn to this area and it is the place their fingers go to turn the page. I realized that the decisions made during the creation of the magazine are dictated by attracting the target population. In this particular case, I found that using a celebrity in articles and as the cover image as important in selling magazines to our target audience of teenage girls. Although there are many teenage girl focused magazines out there, I found that maintaining a unique house style is the key to setting you apart from the competition.