Generic Conventions, Language and Narrative Codes
Masthead:
Vogue means "the prevailing fashion or style at a particular time", thus the masthead of Vogue informs the reader about what the magazine will cover, mainly fashion and lifestyle. The font of the masthead, of the serif family, is very elegant and formal, highlighting the exclusivity and luxurious nature of the magazine itself. The masthead also reflected the publishing company style (which is later discussed).
Featured Article:
"Harry Styles | makes his own rules' ', in addition to emphasizing what, and who, the article will cover, it initiates the narrative that this issue continues to push, the changes in society and defying gender roles imposed by it. The featured article also hooks people on the issue's main topic, giving them something to look forward to when reading the magazine.
Cover Lines:
Like the other magazines analyzed, the cover lines of this issue of vogue uses a simple, modern sans serif font to contrast and balance the delicate and luxurious serif font of the masthead. In a smaller typeface than the featured article, but presumably with the same font, written in black instead of white the paper prints ``Baby Love | Emily Ratajkowski on the magic and mystery of pregnancy", followed by "Finding Joy Now | Fashion (and Gifts!) for Everyone". The cover lines widens the amount, and type, of people who will be interested in continuing to read the magazine after taking a look at the issue cover. The language of this magazine uses several terms that make reference to rebelling to stereotypes commonly shown in the media.
How does the cover image affect portray Narrative and Symbolic codes:
in the image we see Harry Styles wearing a tuxedo jacket on top of a dress, emphasizing the narrative present in this issue of breaking societal stereotypes, mainly showing that clothes don't indicate gender or sexual orientation, but are just another form of expression. This could be interpreted in different ways, positive or negative, by different people, that is why it is considered "bold" that such a famous company as vogue publishes this ideas and narratives so clearly in the front cover.
Issue Date:
The issue's date/edition is placed on the bottom right corner of the masthead, making it less noticeable by the audience and letting the other components of the cover shine over it.
Production Context
Publishing company:
Vogue is published by Condé Nast, a global media company that is involved in the production of various world leading brands, such as, GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired, ect. It focuses on "Interviews with influential people, food and drink reviews and hotel and travel features appear alongside authoritative catwalk-features, beauty products and supermodel imagery" (PRWeek, 2009).
Popularity:
As mentioned before Vogue is extremely popular worldwide, having specific issues for Australia, India, United States, Japan, and many others. As stated by Condé Nast themselves Vogue is the number 1 magazine for luxury department stores' shoppers.
Role of Technologies
A way technology has affected the industry is:
As new technologies develop, so does the magazine industry, which over the years has been able to produce increasingly high quality prints due to the more modern equipment used, such as cameras, photo editing, printers etc.
Website:
The vogue's website embraces the magazine's house style using similar, if not the same, fonts and colors. This makes the media convergence of vogue feel more cohesive and connected to the audience, as well as more appealing to the eye. The audience can also read Vogue's published articles in the website, and look at several different photoshoots over the years. Vogue also has an archive with its US issues, starting in the 1890s.
Audience and Representations
Target Audience:
The main targeted audience of Vogue are young women from 20 to 40 years of age who are interested in the ongoing trends in fashion and want to keep a modern, trendy lifestyle by informing themselves and being kept aware of the odds and ends of beauty and fashion. However with this issue the target audience varies ever so slightly as it now also includes people who understand and support the changes that society is going through in terms of media representation and expression, in addition to Harry Styles' fans.
Images and Target Audience:
Making Harry Styles the main focus of this issue's cover increases the variety of the people consuming this media. It attracts people from the upper to the working class. If this issue did not include Harry Styles it would mainly target people categorized as the aspirer and mainstream, but now it also targets people considered reformers and explorers.
Table of Contents
Articles:
The table of contents does not highlight any article other than the featured article in the front cover. It does this by using a red typeface instead of black to draw the audience's attention to it. This makes it easier to locate for people who were first attracted to the magazine for the appearance of Harry Styles. This continues to use celebrity endorsement as a technique to keep the audience interested and focused.
House Style, Layout, Font and Colors
Fonts:
For example vogue tends to use serif fonts for headings and sans serif fonts for the rest. Like mentioned before this serves the purpose of balancing details with simplicity, however the use of specific fonts brings unity and helps to elaborate a house style.
Layout:
The layout of the magazine cover is of extreme importance when drawing the targeted audience attention, and creating a more efficient media product. The layout of this issue is designed to direct the reader's attention to different aspects in a specific order, which, presumably, is the following: cover image, masthead, featured article, cover lines, Harry's quote (from article), and finally the issue's date/edition.
Color:
The text color used by vogue tends to be bold and intense, such as black and red, while the color palette of the images tend to be less saturated and slightly muted. Vogue uses pretty neutral pastel colors to induce a sense of calmness, this continues to defy the idea that men must always be in a position of power to show their physical strength; instead the magazine shows tranquility.
House Style:
All of the aforementioned constituted of the house style of the magazine. On this occasion, Vogue's house style correlates with the publishing company, Condé Nast. It is constantly reinforced throughout the magazine through the use of fonts, colors and layout; and using these elements in a constant pattern like way, to give cohesion to the magazine.
Mise en Scene
Photography and Composition:
The cover image is set on a field on a cloudy day, probably both natural and artificial lights were used to get this pictured. The model, Harry Styles, is wearing a dress and a tuxedo jacket over it. He is also blowing a light blue balloon that accentuates the sky behind him. The composition of this image is very important, it makes the reader focus on Harry's face by using the rule of thirds; placing his face on the first vertical line as well as having his body on the lower two thirds of the image, while his head stays in the first vertical third. The aperture with which the picture was taken makes the background blurry, emphasizing the protagonist of the model.
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