Study task 5 - Contextual Research

Client background

Gossip magazines, or tabloid magazines, have been around since the early 1900s and began in north America, reporting on the latest scandals and personal lives of celebrities or well-known people at the time. It wasn’t until the 1950s when these magazines began to become more popular in society. Most of which would report on daring stories including illegal drug use and homosexuality among celebrities.

Today, gossip magazines still provide scandalous stories and celebrity content to their readers. However, there has been a recent change in the platforms in which these stories can be communicated. For example, in America, popular sites like TMZ.com are well known for their coverage of the latest celebrity stories. Through the use of social media, the site has been able to gather more viewers and furthermore popularised the coverage of celebrity news online, rather than in a magazine.

One thing to consider when finding a solution was how to reach the biggest audience in today’s society. As there is a shift from reading material to media coverage online, it seems as though the larger audience potential is through the internet. However, by recreating a magazine cover for tabloid news, the project would show how the ideas about body image should be changed from the foundations from which they started. 

Competitors 

The competitors to consider during the project include the magazines that still use body shaming content to sell their products and the online companies that intend to broaden these ideas to a wider audience. By creating a mock design of a gossip magazine it would be possible to show the same audience how the content of the magazines they purchase are reinforcing the prejudices of today’s society.

One thing that needed to be considered during the design process was how to create a design that would challenge the design and layout of other magazines. This means looking at competitors such as Heat, OK!, Star, Hello and Reveal, to see what techniques are used in order to appeal to the audience.

Culture 

As there is a growing culture of identity in society, it is necessary for companies to try and help consumers to find their identity. This can however mean that by encouraging people to pursue a certain identity, there will be a certain image that is considered desirable to all. For example, after reading David Gauntlett’s Media, Gender and Identity (2002), it became clear that companies have instilled an image of what beauty is into society so that they can profit through selling certain beauty products.

In the same way gossip magazines, like Heat, will target certain people to promote their content to, particularly women as they are more likely to take an interest in the celebrity news that is offered. This also gives the magazines the chance to profit through advertising beauty products in the magazine.

This idea of what beauty really is in today’s society has been reinforced through popular culture and the media and will likely continue to do so for the forseeable future. After reading Germaine Greers view of the UK beauty industry in 1999 it was supportive of this theory as it shows that even 18 years ago £8.9 billion a year was spent on beauty products by consumers. When compared to today we can see that the demand for beauty products has increased dramatically as the UK beauty industry is now worth £17 billion.

The same argument can be said for men’s magazines also. We know that the images that are reinforced by the media can be harmful to many young people, in particular. This theory was supported in Suzy Bashford’s 2016 article, This Boy Can, when she found a 13 year-old boy who believed he was fat even though he was of average build. 

There is also the idea that social media is playing a big part in the reinforcement of body desirabilities. For example, celebrities on Instagram can gain a high number of followers, based on their physical appearance and tend to have a big influence on their younger followers most. One way that this could be addressed would be through the use of social media links in the design. For example, by sharing a social media link to a more positive Instagram account, younger followers may be influenced by and more accepting of average body types being portrayed.

Ways to communicate - There are several approaches that could have been taken in order to appeal to the intended target audience. This includes comparing womens magazines to mens magazines and picking out which features are commonly used throughout. These would then be used as inspiration for a magazine that can appeal to both audiences.

By focusing on the use of a hierarchical grid system, it would be possible to sort imagery and text into certain areas of the page in order of relavance. By doing this the magazine can capture the attention of the reader from first glance and encourage them to want to find out more. As the grid system is commonly used throughout many tabloid magazines, this would allow the reader to take interest in a magazine that looks to be a similar style.

In terms of the typography elements of the project, the use of sans serif seemed to be the most necessary, as suggested by peers after seeing several examples that use sans serif text on their covers.