Comparison between two magazines - Vogue & Elle

Most magazines are very similar, they have celebrity faces on the front, top worldwide trending headlines, giveaways, competitions, fashion trends, beauty tips and so much more. Here are two images of magazine covers, one from Vogue, and one from Elle magazines.

 Both of these covers have big headlines, something that makes you interested in the magazine so you want to buy it. Vogue has Adele on the cover, a famous singer, maybe her on the cover wants you to read a story about her, something her fans may be interested in. Elle has just a normal model, advertising fashion and beauty products. Both magazines are colour coded, Vogue being orange and white, Elle being blue and white.

History of VOGUE Magazine

This is the website I used to research the history of Vogue magazine. It tells you everything about the past life of Vogue, when it started, who was the creator and other useful information.

http://students.cis.uab.edu/juli305/finalpaper.html

Vogue magazine has influenced American society for over a hundred years. The magazine has evolved to reflect modern women. Vogue has gone through many changes and has created a market for women’s magazines. Originally, Vogue was more of a high society paper than a mass marketed magazine.


Vogue was founded in 1892 by Arthur Baldwin Turnure. Turnure’s original vision was to be a social gazette for New York’s elite. Turnure’s investors for Vogue included the Vanderbilts, A.M Dodge, William Jay, and Marion Stuyvesant Fish. Turnure hired a staff with a higher socialite status rather than a staff with literary talent. Socialite Josephine Redding was the magazine’s first editor. By all accounts, Redding seemed less worried about fashion and more passionate about animal rights.

Vogue was a weekly journal that aimed to appeal to only high society women and gentlemen. Originally men’s sports were chronicled in the magazine. Fashion was not the focus. Rather, the focus was the traditions of high society; fashion was only mentioned when talking about what was appropriate to wear to an occasion. Vogue had articles reviewing plays, books, music, and discussions of the societal etiquettes of the time. Two regular articles were called “As Seen by Him” and “Of Interest to Her.” “As Seen by Him” was particularly snobbish with articles like “A Word about the Treatment of Servants”. The staff also included “Society Snapshots” which were features of their friends and socialite acquaintances.

The magazine cover below is dated in 1932 and shows how much times have changed before celebs were on the cover of the magazines.

This cover below is the most recent cover from Vogue dated Feb 2012, showing the differences between them throught out the years. How more text has been added, famous faces picture on the front, top headlines, competitions etc..

Fashion Photographer Research - Stephen Eastwood

Stephen Eastwood first started fashion photography around 9-10 years ago. He was once a model himself for fitness around the age of 18-21. His favourite type of photography is beauty and fashion. He is originally from New York. Here are a few images from his website. All these images are different in their own way, show elegant beauty and unique fashion.

Fashion Photographer Research - James Nadar

James Nadar is a UK fashion photographer for UK fashion magazines. His main subject areas are in Manchester and London.

This is James' biography found on his website at www.jamesnadar.com/james

James Nader was first introduced to photography by his father at an early age. Whilst at University James decided photography was for him and was fortunate to exchange to RIT New York where he mastered old fashioned printing techniques such as Cyanotype and Gum Bichromate. Traditionaly trained in film and darkroom printing and processing, James has embraced the digital revolution and made the transition from darkroom to digital.

Below are a few images from his website that inspire me..

My Magazine Cover - Final

This is the magazine cover I created. I used red and white text so you can see it on the dark background, also the red text matches the dress that the front cover model is wearing. I like the main image of the cover because it is on a catwalk, also she is wearing an outfit for fashion, not just anything plain or boring.

Magazine Covers

Here are a few covers from the magazines Elle, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair and VOGUE.

How a magazine is laid out..

Every magazine is different, they all sell different things and advertise in their own way, here is a picture from Cosmopolitan magazine and how the layout is structured.

Above is an image of how a magazine front cover is set out. All front pages have these above. They need to advertise the name of the magazine so you know which brand you are purchasing, also a price label to know how much it costs to buy, a bar code for the shop to scan when you purchase this. Most magazines always have a cover story, something that gets you interested about whats happening around you lately. Also magazines include a date which is usually placed at the top, because you wouldn't want to buy an out of date magazine would you? 

Here is a more detailed explanation of what else a magazine includes..

I found this information on the following website: http://www.magforum.com/cover_secrets.htm

Logo	The name of the magazine displayed in a specific typeface. This is the visual branding of the title and is often done in a specially designed typeface to be very recognisable and unique. The masthead is usually used on the contents page inside as well as the front cover, and as a logo for advertising and branding purposes
Dateline	Month and year of publication, often with the price. Note that a monthly magazine usually hits the news-stands the month before the cover date
Main image	In the case of this front cover there is a single image of the model Shania. The image is used in a classic way, the face is big enough to stand out on the news-stand, with the model making full eye-contact
Model credit	This says: 'Shania: So hot.' It is unusual for such a credit to appear on a magazine front cover, but is done on fashion magazines. The photographer and model credit is usually on the contents page
Cover lines	Cosmopolitan magazine uses a lot of cover lines, which are distributed around the main image without detracting from it too much. A mistake often made with cover lines is that they run over an image that has a lot of colour changes, rendering the words invisible. This is a problem here with the red text on the hair on the left and the smaller yellow text against Shania's skin
Main cover line	This is very large - taking up almost a quarter of the magazine cover - and comes in three layers, each with a different colour. It promotes the use of naked male centrefolds, a feature of Cosmopolitan in the UK since its first issue. Note the main cover line is positioned against the model's shoulder so it shows up clearly
Left third	The left third of the magazine cover is vital for sales in shops where the magazine is not shown full-frontage. The title must be easily recognisable in a display of dozens of competitors. The start of the masthead is important here, as are short cover lines that are easy to read. The top fifth of the cover - usually dominated by the masthead - may be the vital part in supermarkets, where magazines are displayed differently
Bar code	Standard bar code used by retailers
Selling line	Short, sharp description of the title's main marketing point (forCosmopolitan: 'The world's No 1 magazine for young women') or perhaps setting out its editorial philosophy

Fashion Brief

Magazine covers vary depending on what the magazine is about. Say if the magazine is for TV, it will include TV listening and other things that relate to it. We are currently researching about fashion magazine covers, so I have been researching four magazines and exploring how they use their covers to explain what is included. I have searched Elle magazine, VOGUE, Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair.

I have noticed that all of these magazines have the title in large, clear letters that say the name of the magazine, advertising what you are about to buy. There is always an image that covers the page from top to bottom, with it being fashion, 9 out of 10 times, the picture is from head to the top of the leg, showing what the model is wearing. Sometimes magazines have images of celebrities on the front of the cover, others just use everyday models.

Once they have the image of the model and the title on the page, they then just add other things stating what is in the magazine. Like sometimes, you have a free gift, like vouchers inside, but the t&c is that you buy the magazine to receive vouchers. Others just have several pages of fashion outfits, and say where you can buy them from, and how much they cost. They do not always tell you everything in the magazine, they have teasers that make you want to buy the magazine to read what they have. Say if the front cover has on the front, 'Clearance on Model Outfits', you want to buy the magazine to see what outfits will be selling on sale.