As previously mentioned I already have experience of graphic design after studying it at art college. During this course I made various magazine spreads and magazine cover designs, however I have never made and produced a full magazine.
I am confident using Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator and although I am not fully familiar with how to use photography equipment, I do have photography skills and believe I can create attractive imagery for the magazine.
I am contemplating adding watercolour illustrations to some of the pages. Whilst I can paint and draw fairly well I am not sure if my watercolour skills are up to scratch and so I might have to collaborate with an illustrator.
After writing my own blog for three years I am also fairly skilled at writing and think I can apply those skills to creating some articles for the magazine. However, as previously mentioned I will be collaborating with other bloggers to write and produce articles.
Understanding the Breadth and Depth of the Project
Knowing My Audience
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| A recent blogger meet up I went to - all the guests were female |
Analysis - From my own personal experience, the blogging industry is one of the only industries to be dominated by young, female entrepreneurs with the evolution of beauty and fashion "gurus" becoming a huge sensation. Many fashion, beauty and lifestyle bloggers have managed to turn their hobby into a full time job which is something to be celebrated.
Not only are these women carving a career for themselves but they tend to be very active within the community, regularly taking part in "Twitter Chats", engaging with other bloggers and supporting each other. Every single blogger event and meet up I have been to, whilst open to everyone, have only ever been attended by females.
Through my own observation these women tend to be aged between 15-27 with some older women run "mummy blogs" whilst still being active in the fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogging community.
As well as this, a lot of existing magazines are also aimed at this demographic and so this magazine will target young females, aged between 15-27 who are either bloggers themselves and/or regular readers of blogs.
Beauty, fashion and "lifestyle" (lifestyle usually consists of food, health, fitness, homeware/interiors, crafts, books etc) tend to be the main topics these women blog about so I would like to incorporate these subjects within the magazine. Again, these topics are also often covered in general women's magazines so it is something that should hopefully be of interest to my audience.
With this being said, I don't want the magazine to concentrate on superficial subjects, but instead focusing on empowering women and celebrating some of the hard working females that are part of this industry.
I think my audience needs to be entertained, empowered, inspired, advised and motivated through this magazine. It will be something that is both helpful and fun to read, with lots of blogging and lifestyle tips.
Readers should be able to learn something about blogging from reading the magazine, whether that simply be, being introduced to some new blogs, learning how to set up their own or even learning how to turn their blog into a full time career.
For the time being, I will mainly be directing the magazine at a UK audience, however the majority of articles will hopefully apply to an American/European audience as well.
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