An example of an article that I took inspiration from is below:
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| Closer magazine, Issue 470, 26th November - 2nd December |
LIFESTYLE ARTICLE
My first article is a fashion and lifestyle piece based on the well-known idea that a woman is a different clothes size in every shop. The idea arose in one of our magazine lectures, in which we were tasked with pitching five varied ideas to Jacqui Thornton. Along with an idea for 'A Day in the Life of... a beekeeper' story and a 'How are they doing now?' style article about the furniture store Reeve's Corner in Croydon (that became a victim of the London Riots in the summer of 2011) I developed the idea for a fashion piece that was not a simple look at the recent trends. I started thinking about the everyday shopping experience, and wanted to further explore this.
I chose my model, Katie, for two reasons. Firstly, as a friend of mine she was extremely co-operative and allowed me to photograph her with complete consent. When embarking upon an article such as this, having a relaxed and willing model is important and I knew I would achieve this with Katie. Secondly, Katie has a plus size figure - perfect for my article as I am trying to attract the average woman who is a size 16. My original concept was to explore the 'perfect size 10' and whether it exists on the British high street, but I felt that the results would be too narrow and too exclusive: I wanted the image of a girl struggling to fit into a dress because the average woman has experienced it.
Before the photo-shoot I researched the top British high street stores and contacted their head offices to obtain permission to not only photograph their products, in their changing rooms but also to critique them in my spread. This proved difficult with Next and Marks and Spencer's, both of whom refused permission. For the stores I have featured permission was easier to gain; most were happy to accept on the telephone but several, like River Island, required a follow-up email to explain my intention in writing.
On the day of the photo-shoot I used a still digital camera and the voice recorder function on my mobile phone, so that I could record Katie's instant reaction to each dress. The text you see is verbatim, with mild adjustments to correct grammar and the overall syntax. I used my own photographs to avoid any copyright issues.
Before producing my spread, I roughly planned the layout and headline. The simple layout of the article above was a real inspiration for me - the article looks clean and crisp, the dresses are outlined so they stand out perfectly and the white background allows the colours to pop. To achieve this affect in Fireworks I used the magic wand tool to delete the background, the eraser tool to sharpen the edges around the dress, and the blur tool to soften my model's outline. When erasing the background it is incredibly important to be thorough; deleting the space between a model's arm and body, for example, sharpens the whole image. It is the details such as this that make a magazine look professional.
Finishing touches are also crucial and I was concerned with making the article look professional, as though it could easily be published in any C2, D, E woman's weekly. I used a side headline "Style" in a different font, to suggest that the article would be published in the lifestyle section. Choosing eighty and eighty-one as my page numbers was a deliberate decision - in a classic weekly woman's magazine the style pages are around page sixty to ninety. I also gave myself accreditation in small print along the bottom of the page, which is typical of that particular style of magazine.
I decided upon my headline "The myth: are you a different size in every shop?" because it is succinct, essentially 'it does what it says on the tin' and I chose to use a question that is easily relatable for my intended audience. I have used the sub-heading "we find out"to draw the reader in on a very basic level - 'we', writer and audience, are going to decide upon the answer together. I downloaded a font for the headline because I felt the range in Fireworks was far too basic and I used the 'kern' option to manually reduce the space between the letters, making the headline look punchier.
The idea of having a tick or a cross in the bottom corner of each photograph came from this article, that featured in the same edition of 'Closer' as the above article. In this case, the publication has given each outfit a rating - an idea which I adapted into a simple design; easy for my audience to assess whether the dress fitted my model or not.
In my article i used a similar bar at the bottom to display my verdict, however I chose not to use a screamer in my headline as I felt the bold text spoke for itself.
In addition to my spread, where it in a published magazine, I would incorporate social media such as 'Facebook' and use it as a tool to engage my audience's interest. However, for the purpose of this module (where a publication is not definite) I omitted any such device.
For my final spread I created several drafts, one of which is below:
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| In terms of layout I was dissatisfied with the standard of this draft. The images were rather chaotic and needed far much structure. |
CONFESSIONAL ARTICLE
My second article is targeted at a similar magazine to my first, but is in the style of a confessional interview.The interviewee is a friend of mine and, on realising how unusual her story is, informed me about it. I realised that her decision would make a fantastic article - many people joke about it, but to actually research and apply for a job is highly unusual. I asked her to chose a photograph of herself and interviewed her in a relaxed environment. However, perhaps being my friend and having knowledge of my blog she wished to remain unnamed. In accordance with this I censored her eyes (as in the mind of a right thinking person, she becomes unidentifiable) because it would be very easy to openly defame her. Being involved in the sex industry is a taboo and I needed to avoid identification, be it jigsaw or otherwise, so I omitted the details of her university, home town and age.
Similarly to my previous article, I used the magic wand, erase and blur tool to cut out the images of the telephone and lipstick mark. I sourced these images on the website 'Flickr' and gave full accreditation to them in small print at the bottom of the article. I chose red as my colour scheme because it is typical of a confessional interview in magazines such as 'Bella' and 'Real People', and sourced pictures accordingly.
I have written the text in a style that is relevant to my target market. In my previous article I used the word "boobs" instead of 'breasts' or 'chest' for example, as it is illustrative of this market. In this article I used simple, plain English and used first person tense, engaging the reader in this personal account.
The sex phone agency refused to be mentioned when I telephoned them to ask permission. Despite explaining that the article was neutral - I have 'Kali's' fairly positive outlook and Jenny Abel's negative view - the agency declined. As this was the case, I have used the phrase "The agency wishes to remain unnamed". However, I had the leaflet that 'Kali' was sent, and had the information they gave. I want this article to be informative as well as entertaining, and so re-wrote the information for my sub-section "The Job". In this way, the agency is not identifiable.
Whilst researching the topic I came across Jenny Abel's blog "http://feralgenius.blogspot.co.uk" and her article on joining the sex phone industry. I wanted to create a second point of view, and as my research into any official guild lines or experts turned up no comments, I felt that Jenny's blog would fit my article. I have gained written permission from Jenny to use anything from her blog and have credited her underneath the sub-section entitled "The Risks".
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