Print Advertising Treatment/Proposal Product Name: Metropolis Client: Northern Echo Date: 27/11/13 Project Completion Date: 1/03/2013 Branding Objectives

What is the genre of your magazine? What are you informing your audience about? How will it branded? What are the connotations of your branding decisions? What are the connotations of the magazine’s name?

The magazine I’m going to create is a partial hybrid of both culture and tourism products, as well as fashion, music and alternative lifestyle. Although this seems to be very broad, the content I’ll be producing will suit a culture product, and visually reflect the other genres in design and tone. Although broad, the product will be refined through its style and visual element. I’ll be informing my audience about a variety of interest, and most hopefully expanding their culture and interests outside convention, for example the article about local food markets / general markets will help to open up the idea in a readers mind that supermarkets aren’t always the cheapest for quality or bulk products. The article about charity work in Africa will hopefully create a sense of inspiration and persuasion to be charitable and give a little to get a lot back, and the third article, about blogging and how people can progress from amateurs to careers in blogging will give a sense of progression and maturity. Although the three articles don’t really seem to fit into one specific topic or interest, their generality gives them a little edge, meaning no specific interest is needed to read them, and hence my market won’t be so much of a niche. Brands will play a big part in the production and imagery of my magazine, a big sense of over-arching house style will play prominent in helping my youth audience to really connect with the product. Black and white will predominantly make up most of the colour scheme, with odd bursts of colour for important words, breakout boxes or quotes. I think this lack of colour subverts normal branding techniques and hence will appear more enticing. This lack of colour really lends itself to a neutral-gender audience, exactly what I’m going for. I’m not singling out any audience and appealing to the masses. Font and imagery henceforth will play a great deal in branding instead of colour, meaning fonts will have to be distinctive and recognisable, and imagery will have to be daring and interesting or stimulating. The magazines name is ‘Metropolis’. The connotations of this are of urban environments, feelings of immediacy, commotion and whimsicality, all things I want to put across in the product. Metropolis also has connotations of science fiction and the future, something I’d like my readers to associate with, as the future or current news and stories are a large characteristic of the stories in the product. Metropolis is also an uncommon word around my age group (which make up a good percentage of the audience), which could create an enigmatic buzz and also shift my audience slightly up in terms of age, which fits in line with the content.

Audience communication objectives

Who is your audience? Identify: tribe, socioeconomics, age, gender split.

The audience of my product in short, will be teenagers who are progressing from college to university. Hence the age group will be between 16-24, but more realistically 17-21 year olds. Students will be an important audience for me as well, being the primary educational group. Younger or older student readers needn’t feel excluded though, as the products content won’t necessarily address particular age groups, but more summarising the entire concept of who a student is. The socioeconomic band, which applies most to my product, is that of the ABC1, perhaps rounding more towards the B grade. Hence my audience will be comfortable with their money but also have/earn enough to pay for a monthly subscription. Their education status will be that of Higher Ed and hence they should be intelligent and hard working. If they have a job, their income will be somewhere between the average and upper average pay. Gender split will be somewhere between 60-70% female to 30-40% male respectively.

Your unique selling point

My products USP are multifaceted. It combines the idea that the publication is an attempt to fill a student-based hole within the market, and will serve as one of the only student-marketed and career based products with a young-adult theme. The supplement also has a broad hybridity unique to only a few on the market, the idea comes from being appeal to all audiences with a variety of interests and keeping away from niche, typical content. The products alternative content has a big investment in the USP, it focuses on underground art, lifestyle choices and emerging trends, matched with unconventional design to create aesthetically pleasing and informative product, which could rival large established international or commercial publications. Finally the idea of creating a magazine for the local area, within and around means that the supplement will also have a bigger, local arch across its content, focusing on local businesses, initiatives and issues arising from the area.

Overview

Description of front cover and contents page Content. Imagery to be deployed: metaphorical, ideal, window to the future self

The front cover will use a large close-up image of a male’s face, the tilt-up shot will place the eyes in the very top third of the photo. The masthead unconventionally will appear further down the page, centered in the lower half, creating a book-like, authentic feel. Text and sell lines will be limited, with a list of featured people, places and articles within the magazine, and these will be in the top right corner. The colour scheme will be dark, moody and enigmatic, with font colour for the masthead being an orange, and the accent colours being white and dark blue. The image hopefully will generate a sort of aspiration; the model will be looking up and away from the camera, and will create a degree of mystery. I think the image will also be relatable for both males and females, because men will want to aspire to be the model, and females could actually view it a poster-image or some sort of ‘eyecandy’. The contents page will be very formal and standard, with just blacks and whites to create a stark, contrasting page. Fonts will be important in creating titles, and hence I’ll be using a formal serif font, and perhaps even a smaller sans-serif font for body text. Imagery may be reduced to black and white copies of the double page spreads of perhaps inclusion of some of the photography used in each. I’ll hopefully use representational imagery and familiar or softer, inviting pictures to create enigmatic or inviting tones.

Double Page 1 Title, content and article type

The first double page spread will be the ‘Make The Most of The Market’; The content of this will be influential and it’ll be a countdown article which will document the best, and cheapest products available at food markets. The content has its alternative twist, looking for health and holistic products, which are emerging as a big trend. Short paragraphs and snappy sentence structures will be joint with additional imagery of both the market and products being ‘reviewed’. This imagery will have a coloured overlay or will remain black and white, colour will only come through fonts, and layout features ie background colour and quote inserts.

Triple Page 2 Title, content and article type

The second spread is the previously tested ‘African Expedition’ spread. This will be the first of two triple page spreads. The content will be an integrated interview which documents a past-students expedition to Africa to do charity work at the culmination of her second year, the interview will be a mix of informal chat and formal biographical text. Imagery will be of the student and her expedition clothes or props relating to safari and conservation. Colour again being minimal, it should come from photos, colour overlays or font colour.

Triple Page 3 Title, content and article type

The third spread will be the ‘Blogging: The Teenage Ritual’ article, which will mix editorial style and short, quoted interviews. It will discuss the sudden rise of blogging as a hobby and how some people have taken this profession to new heights by forming careers from it, linking with a pre-job world audience I’m targeting the product at. Long, detailed paragraphs met with a range of long and short sentences will create a descriptive, flowing piece with an influential tone. Imagery will be large

and relatively symbolic or representational of technology, people writing on modern devices such as phones and ipads, perhaps even a staged photograph of several people connecting up to a blog. Imagery may be difficult for this part though.

Distribution objectives

Regional or national? Circulation: how many and why this number? Outlets and rationale: Pricing: premium, mid or free to view? Why? Print quality: Discuss print finishing, magazine size, paper quality. Number of pages. Advertising to content ratio

The product will be distributed through a regional retail option, which will allow me to get my product competing with alternative products, but at a cheaper price. I’ll be able to use my audience’s dislike of free, or disregard or supplementary products as an advantage this way. I’ll be printing a good 3000 copies as I only expect about half of these to actually sell, in both newsagents as well as music stores such as HMV or Urban Outfitters. Pricing strategy will be competitive; the product, which is twenty pages long, will be priced at just £2, the retail price being only £1. I think £2 sounds about right, perhaps when you compare to products that have more content it sounds a little more worthwhile, but I think the price demands quality, meaning that the product will have to have above average, commercial standards of quality in its design and article structure. The quality of print will be high, for example the product will be full colour throughout, on a silk paper with average weight. The cover will be thicker, with a matte finish; this type of paper choice will enhance the ‘premium’ feel I’m going for, with a book-like feel. The binding is simple saddle stitch. The dimensions of the product are smaller than an a4, but larger than an a5. I feel this ‘small’ copy gives me enough room to present the content, but not expand massively, creating a short, concise, neat product. The content to advertising ratio is about three parts advertising, two parts content. Essentially the advertising forms the largest part of the product at the front, which isn’t unusual for these types of products. The advertising features heavily throughout, with mainly single page adverts, but towards the back, the products advertising becomes smaller and smaller showing the importance of the front page ads, and giving more room for content.

Visual Aesthetics

Story control Objectives

The products overall story objectives are to maintain a mix of both formal factual text and informal, quirky text. Length of articles will change depending on how many pages are used for each article, for example the triple pages will contain about fifteen short paragraphs, whereas the double page spreads could be somewhere around ten. Each paragraph should contain about four to six sentences, alternating in length to create a medium paced text. This middle-range allows me to go further in-depth with my research and explanation, but keeps the tone a little superficial, appealing to the mind-set of my audience, who perhaps will read into the topics a little more than younger readers. Images will be more prominent however, single images will form large parts of each page, with the text being an addition, the ratio will be somewhere around the lines of one image to three or four paragraphs. In the articles, I’m trying to spread the idea of an alternate lifestyle that isn’t too exclusive, the idea that not every single opportunity is that far away and hopefully a great deal of inspiration and even ‘life-changing’ influence. The stories don’t necessarily have an usual angle, but to be honest the content is not necessarily usual in the first place, convention is broken in terms of what is going to be written about, so the need to skew the angle of interest isn’t really necessary because I think it’d further exclude and distance it from the readers anyway. Each article does however have an interesting article introduction, for example both the African expedition and blogging articles will have short, snappy, alliteration filled question introductions which both create that sense of ‘need-to-know’, prompting audiences to read further. The market article has a summary article, a bit boring but will help to plunge an audience into unfamiliar territory in a rundown article, which could seem a little out-of-depth.

Image content objectives

I’ll only be taking four separate photo-shoots, but one of them will be external, the rest are studio set-ups. The market shoot may end up becoming a studio shoot if I can find enough items to model, but for now I’ll simply be taking images of the market and the things you can buy, a sort of first-person piece. I’ll have the model wear the items or attempt to demonstrate them on the day of the visit, but if this proves too hectic or difficult, a studio shoot is the contingency. Props and costume in this respect will be bought/provided by the stalls, but item’s I’ll be specifically looking out for include clothes, jackets, shoes, glasses, odd brick a brack, for example pots, blankets/throws, vinyl, toys, cameras, nostalgic items of technology ect. The model will most likely be female, and I’ll have her in her own ordinary clothes, we won’t try to make a big important spectacle, rather investigative or undercover is more favourable. Her poses again will be fun, free and a little playful, we’ll try to incorporate some slightly daring imagery, blocking off parts of the face, angular arms and hands ect. This imagery should reflect on how positive and fun it is to go out and just find things, reflecting on the carefree nature of the article. The female model shall be a response to the mainly female audience, but we won’t limit ourselves to just finding female-orientated items, hence the tech and shoes will be a little more male-focused. Since androgyny and ‘boy’ style fashion is a big trend, audience exclusion isn’t a problem here. The other three photoshoots will use a harsh, narrow lighting which will create a lot of shadow and darkness, relating to the enigmatic, stark tone I want to push, poses such as looking upwards, or tilting upwards will generate the inspirational imagery I’m looking for and other poses might include an energetic scream, smile, balance or generally quirky smiles, and winks. I’ll replicate imagery seen across alternative lifestyle products, such as pouting, glossy eyes, a dead, half-assed, heroin chic style pose, ala Courntey Love. Colour will be dark, or even limited to just monochrome, and I might even include negative versions as well. I’ll be using a dark contrast, with a lighter overlay to get a very dark shade of gray, but not black as such. Models will be a mix of male and female, generating that ambiguous anti-gendered audience, and their costumes and clothing/makeup shall reflect the idea of androgyny or unconventional fashion. These photoshoots might not necessarily reflect the content, (The only one that will, will be the African Expedition article which will feature the interviewee in the photoshoot), but the idea of the other two articles is to create much more symbolic and referential imagery, rather than literally have someone on a laptop, typing for the ‘blogging article’. I think this is more effective and emotive.

Language Control Objectives

The product should overall have a sombre feel, the tone being a mix of serious factual info and informal discussion or development throughout, maintaining both the authoritative and friendly feel. I’ll be using third person in the blogging article to infuse some sort of togetherness and collective quality. Use of ‘we’ and ‘us’ helps to create a more receptive, interested audience. I’ll be using second person for the interview article, using ‘she’ and ‘her’ to create a more, exciting, fast paced ‘story-like’ article. I’ll be using a mix of first, second and third person to utilize both the directive and collective tones, but first person to also create some opinionative and informative text, but the majority of the text will come under second person, as the countdown will use words like ‘you’ and ‘yourself’ when referring to what somebody could buy. I’ll be using an alternation of long and short sentences to create a medium reading speed, giving readers enough time to digest information but move on efficiently. Alliteration, and emotive language again will be used to keep the pace flowing, the articles engaging and the text a little risqué or shocking, this factor will keep readers reading further and further into the article, but my intention will not be to scare, more to challenge and question. I’ll probably use words like ‘extravagant’, ‘devoted’, ‘desperate’ ect. Compounds might be used in both the market and blogging articles, directing the audience to ‘search’ or ‘hunt’ or even ‘follow’ ect, I think these direct words will help to formulate the idea of going after your own interests and really pursuing hobbies or curiosities. I’ll be avoiding colloquial language, as I don’t necessarily feel like it’ll add too much in terms of audience engagement, but explicit words could be used in the interview, but only via quote, I think though, they’ll end up not being important either. Ellipsis is another big important element that will be used not only on the front cover but also in introductory paragraphs or even at the end of articles which don’t really formulate into a conclusive end, the idea of using them helps generate a mystery or an unfinished idea, something that should be later explored and I really want to hammer home this idea to my readers.

Colour control objectives

I’ll be using a distinct lack of colour for my product, to create the serious, dark and sombre tone which I’ve suggested, a lot of white and black are used in contrast to create both inspirational and serious qualities, which will then have accent colour on top, which will be limited to text or image overlays. I really want to use colour in this way to show important items. This three-colour rule will help my product to feel refined and mature. Contrasting colours, such as orange and violet make an appearance on the African expedition article, which is the spotlight of the product and hence is the most important, but any colouring other than this will be less extensive. The market article could be using some pink and blue contrasting colours, indicating the gender-neutrality, but also in the imagery. These colours are both soft and pastel tones and so won’t be too bold on the page. The blue feels clean, and new and the pink counterbalances its harsh, coldness, creating a friendly and warm, inviting spread. Backgrounds will stick to a dark, grey colour with text being white and the foreground being any of the accent colours, this is the opposite to ‘white-on-black’ and personally I think it looks more intriguing and visually fuller and artistic. The CMYK colour codes are as follows:

• VIOLET: C:12 M:18 Y: 0 K:0 • ORANGE/PEACH: C: 0 M:16 Y: 35 K: 0 • BLACK/GREY: C:0 M: 0 Y: 0 K:90 • BLUE: C:30 M:0 Y:11 K:0 • PINK: C:0 M:16 Y:4 K:0

Typography objectives

A majority of fonts will be used in my product across the spreads, the main two however being ‘Gothic Bold’ and ‘Thin Grotesque’, one being a simple, curved and block sans-serif font, the other a more artistic, stretched and genuinely ‘gothic’ serif font. These two will be used in tandem but at a large, readable type, mainly for quote inserts of headers. The body text will be a ‘typewriter’ style font, but I’ll try to stay away from monospaced fonts. I’ll be specifically using a font that is readable at a small size, so thin and non-blotchy, arty qualities are required for this. An italic, serif font will be used for small details, such as the quote name, the page number and the article information, ie credits or captions. The typewriter font should give the article a fun, authentic and ‘tabloid’ style, which shouldn’t take itself too seriously. A lot of the title text will be flat, centered at the top of the page, but others may also be aligned right especially on double pages, forcing the focal point to be more central, and forcing a reader to move their eyes naturally from one to the other. A fourth font, will be used for the drop cap, this font will be sans-serif, large, widely-stretched and a clear indication of where the article begins. FONT EXAMPLES THIN GROTESQUE TIMES NEW ROMAN GOTHAM BOLD TEX GYRE CURSOR ANDALE MONO TS BLOCK

Layout objectives

A prominent, two-column scheme will feature in my product, but the columns won’t be equal width. I’ll be using thin, page-length columns as well, overlaying them over images in a collaged fashion. These should create a quirky, visually fun and progressive article that gets easier and easier to read as interest wains. Columns will help divide my product up so that it isn’t so image heavy, but they also shouldn’t be so intrusive as to overshadow the images. Columns will help to break up text and keep the product fresh and innovative. Splitting the text into sections will make it easier to digest for an audience with a lower attention span. The entry point to my product will always be at the top left or right of each page, this will be created by using titles, kickers and header features such as lines and article information. Again the articles entry point will also be at the top left, signified by the drop cap, which will be a separate distinct font. The main focal point will be images which will always tend to be on the left of the spreads, these will normally take up about 3 quarters of the page and hence will be hugely important in directing my audience along through the product. Secondary focal points will be titles and headers, which should be combinations of large print font, which will create a form of authoritative ‘READ HERE’ tone. I’ll be using a mix of flat and layered design to create sensible, formal and interesting layouts as well as fresh, unusual and energetic or active layout. I’ll do this by using multiple layers, which will create a ‘collected’ style product, again suiting the audiences taste and desire. I’ll be using a solid layout, which should be replicated across the product to create a house style. I will not be using diagonals but purely because my layout is very square and regimented, so diagonals will seem out of place, but diagonals may be used in imagery, for example head titles and arm positions. I’ll be using bold and italicised on certain keywords and quote inserts, verbs and adverbs will be used to keep a sense of realism and ‘story’. I’ll not be using breakout boxes because they don’t really appear in my type of product at all, and after my intial genre research and article ideas, I didn’t really think that any extra content would really benefit the design or the articles I was presenting.