research 2

 

mood board: Hearst

After looking at a variety of front covers for the magazine Hearst, I have selected some that caught my eye as some of the most aesthetic ones which I will take as inspiration for my coursework. In this mood board of covers, there are a range of different races, genders, ages and shot types. The variety in representation is something which I aim to emulate in my own work, as well as including less generic appearing individuals. I have found that Hearst newspapers tend to include a lot of writing on the front cover, something I will consider for my magazine but not an approach I am likely to take. Researching the magazine, I have been more attracted to the covers that took a more simplistic approach to the layout, like the ones in my mood board. This I think provides a more sleek appearance which popular magazines that the target audience is likely to include. 

 

Industrial context

The history of Hearst

On March 4, 1887, William Randolph Hearst places his name on the masthead of the San Francisco Examineras "Proprietor" for the first time, marking the beginning of Hearst Corporation. In 1896 with William Randolph Hearst’s encouragement, Richard Outcault developed The Yellow Kid,” transforming a simple gag panel into the first true example of the comic strip. “The Yellow Kid” leads the charge in Hearst’s trailblazing American Humourist comic supplement. The next year, Hearst introduced “The Katzenjammer Kids” in the New York Journal. King Features still distributed the strip, making it the longest-running newspaper comic in history. Then in 1900 The Good Housekeeping Institute, a precursor to the FDA, was founded 15 years after its namesake magazine to improve the lives of consumers and their families through education and product evaluation. In 1912 and 1913 Hearst’s New York Journal introduces the first full page of weekday daily comics and Hearst’s New York Journal introduced the first full page of weekday daily comics. By 1933 Harper’s BAZAAR was one of the first fashion magazines to do a shoot on location and show a model in motion and in 1940 Harper’s BAZAAR’s Editor-in-Chief Carmel Snow famously featured a photograph on the cover, until then covers featured art and illustrations. Harper’s BAZAAR became the first women’s fashion magazine to feature a man, actor Steve McQueen, on the cover in February 1965. Esquire became a Hearst publication in 86 and at the end of the century O, The Oprah Magazine, a venture with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Entertainment Group, was published. It is regarded as one of the most successful magazine start-ups in industry history. The October issue of Esquire in 2008 featured a flexible electronic "paper" cover that allowed words and images to scroll across it, a first for magazines, in celebration of the magazine’s 75th anniversary. In 2010 and 2011 Hearst was the first magazine publisher to make all its titles available to read on every major tablet device and Hearst acquired almost 100 magazines in 14 countries from Lagardère, making it one of the largest monthly magazine publishers in the world and the largest monthly publisher in the U.S. 

Audience research

The intended target audience for the brief is a primarily 16-25 year old middle market aspirational group. This can depict that audiences will most likely be engaged by high end products and brands that they can have desires to possess. Providing imagery and contents of influential seeming people and industries, there is an opportunity for escapism and aspiration. Audience members for a lifestyle magazine will be looking for the highlights of fashion and music etc and want content that is seemingly perfect in order to stay engaged and find influential. The website as well as the magazine itself will need to be aesthetic with good imagery as well as the layout, in order to appeal to the audience who desires the aesthetic. 

planning moderators report

 1. Work should be polished, sophisticated, highly developed, highly appropriate and accomplished in order to reach a high standard.

2. Strongest work had clearly been supported by focus research, detailed planning, attention to detail and a strong, sustained concept based solidly on the requirements.

3. Most candidates managed to explore the cross-media aspects of the the brief very well, with some excellent links being made between products.

4. Excellent examples included the full range of production details, with some well-considered and appropriate photography and an overall aesthetic across all products.

5. Stronger magazines chose their fonts with discrimination and showed control in terms of size and leading .

6. The best work used a variety of images on the contents, with page numbers on the images anchoring them to the written contents and appropriately laid out and sized text.

7. Many magazines contracted representation really well, with subtle but thoughtful differences around nationality, class, aspiration as well as ethnicity and gender. Some of the most interesting work questioned issues of normative gender stereotypes.

8. For the online website product some superb examples were seen, with many going beyond the specifics of the brief in terms of the amount of material included, both in terms of visuals and the copy.

9. The best sites exhibited effective, bespoke photography and copy, often capturing a tone appropriate to the needs of the intended audience, with a degree of sophistication being clear.

10. Top end work ensured that traffic was driven between the website and magazine with well designed consistent branding.

chosen brief