Magazine research

 Here is the research of my magazine

Here is the research for my magazine cover.

Magazine rack

Magazines will compete against each other for the potential buyers and audience's eye. Whether its from the content or from the cover page. But the most vital aspect of selling magazines is their placement on the shelves. Companies would pay loads of money to buy into this advantage. The cover would still be the most valuable part of the magazine as the cover is the element in the magazine who catches the readers' eye, creates a first impression of the magazine itself and the topic to attract potential readers according to the target audience.

Natasha-By Dr Fredi Setiawan

SLAM

By Dennis Page (Founder and Publisher) and David Schnur (Executive Publisher) and PRIMEDIA.

Slam is a sports magazine company that is published by PRIMEDIA, this magazine revolves around basketball as its main focus alongside Hip-Hop culture and is aimed to entertain basketball enthusiasts and sport lovers in general.

Media Language 

Sport magazines usually put up athletes, match information and the picture of the sport in question on the cover of its magazines. In this context, SLAM magazines put Jayson Tatum, a famous basketball athlete and a rising star in the basketball world, to conform up to those conventions. This cover contains Jayson Tatum as its main star appeal, with a cold and striking look to provide a masculine image, and a slighty low-cowboy shot, with his head covering the masthead, emphasizing that he is the main focus while giving a general idea of what will be inside the magazine. Still in context, the masthead itself is also named, "SLAM", which is a common term used amongst basketball athletes after doing an athletic move towards the basket, it uses this term to directly conform to its theme as a basketball while attracting its desired audience, which is basketball fans as well. The other coverlines on this cover also consists of other basketball stars, such as Zion Williamson and Trae Young. This massive amount of star appeal will help SLAM by a lot as it will be very eye catching to the potential customer passing by the racks, as mentioned on the ways to catch the eye of the potential consumers on the first part of this research blog. 

It is also worth to mention that the uses of star appeal is a very good idea in my opinion, and it would defenitely be a good idea to put on my magazine as a also plan to put a celebrity on my cover, the camera angles are also very intriguing, which is a nice inspiration for my magazine cover that I am going to make as I would like my cover model to look masculine and intimidating in an attractive way to potential readers and consumers.

Representations

As mentioned, this particular magazine Jayson Tatum as its main, primary image. And as mentioned, this picture uses a cowboy shot to put him in a spotlight, giving him a more commanding and superior impression towards the audience. In this cover, Jayson Tatum is seen to be wearing the black and green colours of the NBA team Boston Celtics, with its background also being black and the color of the masthead being green. This is used to further emphasize that Jayson Tatum is a true, loyal Celtic. As a insight to audience, it would be likely that Boston Celtics fans are the one who is going to read the magazines due to the representation that are being associated with them. The, "coming for the throne" as the main coverline signifies that there is more to come for this young star, with a long future ahead of him. 

This would be a good idea for my magazine as it contains simple details such as the colours and the background and the mis en scene of the athlete more meaningful, this is not only effective, but it does not take a lot of time to edit, still creating a top-quality magazine cover. I would like to add a simple, but yet meaningful mis-en-scene to my magazine.

Audience

This magazine would be targeted to 12-22 year old male teenagers who view basketball as their hobby and as their passion. With Jayson Tatum acting as a possible role model to these teens to view as not only he is a fantastic player, but he also comes from a rough background and these two will combine to an INSPIRING  role model. As the cover image and icon of this magazine, teenagers would love to hear his, "rags to riches" story, alongside on how he trains and his daily habits as a basketball star. To add, as magazines with celebrities as their covers would always do, they would put the star/celebrity in the upper third of their magazines to catch the potential customers eye, increasing the likelihood and chances of people grabbing and taking a look at the magazine.

I could use this in my magazine by choosing an inspiring person to represent the magazine cover. To give it extra meaning for readers to read, and inspire them as a part of my USP.

Industry

SLAM magazine also have its own webistes for the public to purchase alongside most of its past and present edition, with different types of online articles surrounding basketball as well. This website presence will also be equivalent to more accessibility to all audiences who use a phone or technology (as almost everyone uses a phone nowadays) and would be important in targeting their target audience, which are teenagers, who are always having their phone in their pocket. May increases the likelihood of purchase as there are a more wide range of potential customers that they could reach through online presence.

Sports Illustrated 

Published by Meredith Corporation, owned by Authentic Brands Group, founded by Henry Luce

Is an American-based sports magazine, first released in 1954. It provides sports news, analysis, highlights on each sport it covers, alongside the statistics that revolves around games in many different leagues in the world.

Media Language

Same in the first example, in the context of this magazine, it still uses a rising sensation in Victor Wembanyama, a high level recruit often compared to greats such as Lebron James and Michael Jordan. In this cover though, Victor Wembanyama poses with a more laid back and fashionable attire, with a laid-back stance, giving the vibes and impression that this magazine would be a light topic. This magazine is clearly aimed a basketball enthusiasts through literally the tall frame that is being emphasized by the low angle shot which makes him appear taller then he already is, more of a flex of the main cover, alongside the ball literally bouncing off his hand, still keeping his dominant figure, the magazine still decided it will be good to cover its masthead with a part of Victor Wembanyama's head. As the title," Sports Illustrated" does not directly tell that it is about basketball, so in simple terms, it just uses a tall guy with a basketball in hand and almost always the audience can tell that it is basketball magazine. Once again, this star appeal would be very helpful especially when targeting the most basketball-updated audience. As Victor Wembanyama is also a frequently hyped up talent.

Representation

As mentioned, this magazine uses worldwide hyped talent and prosepect Victor Wembanyama, whose potential is compared to basketball greats in the past, some differences compared to the first magazine is the general mis-en-scene of the magazine cover compared to the first magazine. This magazine depicts Victor Wembanyama in a more laid back fashion, with bright gen-Z clothes such as the hoodie, with a laid back pose and a bright background. Which gives an impression that the particular topics would be more laid back. Still, he is an icon for young people who wants to look in to his talent and his routine. As it conforms to the coverline,"Why Parisian Prodigy is the best NBA prospect in the generation".

This idea of being,"laid back" would also be a good idea as I want my magazine to be readable to all general basketball lovers regardless of their ages. And making the magazine more laid back/not too complicated will help a lot.

Audience

As Victor himself is a younger prospect and categorized as a young athlete (18 years old), so it could be logically assumed that this magazine is aimed towards younger/tween-teenage (10-18) boys who want to know more about his talent and how to build upon it. Also with less topics to cover making the magazine seem less complicated from the outside, as young teenagers would not typically like the idea of reading multiple topics in one thick illustrative book. This magazine also uses the upper third rule, with an already massive and tall Victor being made to appear more taller and its head rising on the upper third makes it easier for potential customers to spot.

Industry 

Sports illustrated ensures its much needed online appearance by frequently running its own website to go through with targeting the younger audiences, with different headlines and cover athletes in each of their issues.

4 mini-analysis

This would be a perfect example on how I would lay out my magazine cover, a calm and fitting background that would match the theme of my cover athlete, keeping the amount of coverlines minimum to focus on my main cover athlete and the main cover line.

This I would preferably not put as my contents page as this would be too wordy for my target audience to read (12-20 year olds), I also want to get the magazine straight to the point. This may be minimalistic, but this design is too minimalist and too empty.

This is another example on how I will not layout my double page spread as it is too wordy, I would like my picture to be one with the double page spread, with short but detailed main points and descriptions about the topic on tips on basketball. To make it seem more intriguing, with picture dominated double page spreads, the audience won't have to visualize too much on how to do this how to do that.

This is a perfect example on how I will NOT lay out my magazine as even though I like it more picture dominated, it has too many pictures embedded in one page, making this one page congested with pictures which does not look good on my target audience, especially in this modern, minimalistic-appreciating demographic and psychographic target age and audience. 

I personally would not style my magazine like this as I could also presume and understand this magazine is more to the systematic side, with more words being out in the contents page. As this magazine is presumably presented to an older audience.

This is actually a good example on how I would lay out my double page spread. More picture dominated, the only thing that I would not follow from this example is the amount of words being compiled to one page. Making it a bit too word-congested, while I want to mines to be more direct and effective. (more of like subtitles with a bit of explanation texts) in one of the tutorials in my double page spread.

Simillar to the first magazine, this magazine will be a good example on how I would style my magazine. Simillar to my first reason in the first magazine, I would put this as my cover layout as it is more picture dominated.

This is how I would kind of style my contents page, as it is less wordy and uses subtitles as its main indicator of topics inside the magazine. With small little descriptions in the bottom. But in my opinion, there are too much pictures stilll.

This is how I would style my magazine as it is simple and straightforward, but the con side of this magazine is that it is too simple, barely any words. But this gives a good insight on how big I would make my cover star. As it follows the upper third rule. Making the characters head stand strong and tall amongst other magazines.

This is also how I would style my contents page, as it contains minimum words and more pictures. But in this context, its too dull.

Reflection: This is by far the hardest work I have ever been given by My Teacher, as this is time consuming as I have to analyze four different magazines. As it is AS levels, this is not my only project, so time management was one of my main problems as there were many overwhelming projects that I have to handle with the same deadline as this one. Overall, I think it was worth it and I think I did good on this particular part.