I have been using some of the skills I recently attained on Photoshop in order to try and create the front cover of an issue of FHM. This is the first time I have used the programme to create a piece from scratch pretty much unaided. There were many benefits from this and I now feel much more confident about using Photoshop. I not only learnt some new skills but have also increased my competency with the old ones and feel this will help significantly when I have to use the programme for the advanced production.
I generally followed the codes and conventions employed by FHM on their magazine rather than trying to subvert them because I was aiming to create a believable product. Such things as colour schemes, text layout, font size and type, style of picture and the content of the text were all used to create this believable text. I began by choosing the picture of the model which was to be used as the central figure about which the rest of the front cover was based. I chose the picture of Bianca Gascoigne because she was posing in a slightly provocative manner like those traditionally used by FHM. This is used in order to grab the potential buyer’s attention and to subsequently create a sense of desire.
The second thing I added to the cover was the title. This is the most important piece of information on the cover to the company as it lets its readers know that this is FHM. The significance of this piece of information can be shown using the rule of thirds as not just FHM but almost all magazine producers place the magazine name in the top third and very often right in the top left corner of the page. This is the most powerful place on the page as this will often be the first place the reader’s eye will be drawn to.
Traditionally FHM place the title layer behind the layer that the picture of the model is on. I was initially going to remove the background around the model and put in a new one on a different layer which would have then allowed me to place the title behind the model. However cutting around her accurately would have taken too much time and so I decided to simply place the title ahead of the picture. More problems began to arise from this decision not to cut out Bianca as a new layer such as positioning and sizing. As I couldn’t move her around the page or change her size the rest of the text I wrote covered more of her body than I would have liked and was often hard to read due to colour contrasts. I stuck to the traditional FHM colour scheme of red, black and white with regards to the text which limited the extent to which I could make it stand out from the background.
These problems actually turned out to be a bit of a learning curve however and I fell they helped me overall. I had to get more creative when trying to make the cover work which allowed me to learn some new skills, especially when it came to the effects that could be applied to text. I will also consider this issue in the future when deciding on whether spending time cutting an object out and using a different background may actually be beneficial in the long run.
Louis Althusser’s theory of interpellation applies strongly to magazine covers and many of my decisions were influenced by this theory. The picture was of such a style that it should immediately grab the attention of the target audience in the ‘Hey You’ manner described by Althusser. The text on the cover was also specially chosen for this reason. The FHM title brings with it many ideologies that current and new potential customers may hold and so this was given prominence in size, colour and by use of the rule of thirds. The information on articles inside was also made with a specific person in mind. FHM look to portray a masculine theme and so I included articles on cars, girls, fight scenes and gadgets. These topics are aimed to represent the common discourses of the ‘ideal’ FHM consumer and so in some way they should make the potential customer become the magazine’s ‘subject’ which should turn the initial ‘Hey You’ attention into a purchase.
Further structuralist theory can also be applied to the creation of magazines in the form or Michel Foucault’s narratives and technologies of the self and Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas on cultural capital. Foucault’s technologies of the self and Bourdieu’s objectified capital work on a similar level. They both signify the physical things that the reader can take on to their own identity in order to try and raise their social standing within a particular group. On my cover I used title headings which talked about fashion, cars, gadgets, holiday destinations and fight scenes all of which provide objectified capital from which the reader can pick and choose how to develop their identity. After analysis however I did notice that my magazine cover does not include article titles that include embodied capital. In the future I will make sure to add this is it is an important part of how any magazine connects with its readers.
Anne Cronin talks of similar influences on the consumer however she does not believe there is choice but that magazines create ‘compulsory individuality’. Her ideas also extended to ‘if you buy it you can become it’ which shows the influence magazines can have on their readers. This means that finding the right picture and getting the titles of articles dealing with cultural capital and technologies and narratives of the self on the front cover are important when trying to connect with the consumer. On my magazine cover I have provided the consumer with a range of items from which they can choose to build their identity such as holidays, cars, gadgets and clothes.
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