CROSS PLATFORM MAGAZINE CASESTUDY.
- Hannah
- Nov 1, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 11, 2020
CROSS PLATFORM CASESTUDY:
VANITY FAIR:
The magazine began in three separate stages in the 1800s, first in Manhatten (1859 - 1863), second in in the UK (1868 - 1914) and lastly being another American version in 1890.
1859 - 1863: This was a short lived magazine which was published weekly and was based in Manhattan.
1868 - 1914: This venture was commonly known and was best thought of for their witty writing and caricatures of people with privilege, this was mainly men.
1890: The American version came to light with weekly publications which were known for being a 'theatre magazine'.
FONT:
The iconic serif font makes the reader feel secure with the structure which is given by the bold capitalisations, this shows them that they want the reader that they want to be seen as a news outlet as well as a celebrity news magazine. The brand has used a few similar fonts among their publications, shown here, they use VF Sans Condensed as logo / headline. VF Sans Condensed was originally designed for Vanity Fair however it is now available for public use through purchase only. It was made to have a feel of the 1930s fonts which used below shows the theory in practice: it works.
The company's website shows the striking serif font which - accompanied with the layout - which gives the impression of an old school newspaper. The two codes mentioned give the feel of sophistication to the reader, as they feel that they are reading an important, vintage text. This specific layout is something that many will be attracted to, prominently the female audience which may isolate the male demographic. This is similar with the magazine, the general layout and theme of the pages appear to be designed in the specific way, this concept brings consistency..yet, with the online experience being a global possibility, they could have suited the general design layout to be more generic to appeal to a larger audience. In doing this, the print magazine could keep the retroness as an exclusivity, bringing in higher sales as the experience cannot be found online.
GOOGLE:
Upon googling for the magazine, the brand describes itself to include: 'entertainment, TV, politics, celebrity, fashion, beauty news and commentary'. This range of content spreads across a wide demographic, however the layout and design of the publication would gear towards a more feminine audience. The magazine is well known for being a celebrity one, featuring many A listers, so the order of the contents list would be best being changed to adapt the actuality of the subject matter. The technique would attract more of the right people, then encouraging them to share the brand via the uses and gratifications of personal relationships.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
The social media giant means that the brand can spread to a wider audience, with the general consumer of instagram being 18 - 24 year olds, the magazine can make posts related to this target audience. With the platform you can make posts or stories to promote articles or news.
The magazines clearly is inclusive of all POC (people of colour) as on their feed to the left they showcase both white and black, including origins of Scotland and Puerto Rico. This also stretches to sexualities and identification, this is a very prominent theme of this 18 - 24 generation (the target audience of instagram) as they fight for rights and equality against the system, in turn meaning they will gain some readers from this audience from something as easy and basic as being inclusive and accepting.
A draw back with instagram is that they can't keep links up, for instance, a post references an article, yet the link to the actual page is 'in the bio' - demonstrated below. This link will
change with each post like this, so if you want to read an article from even a few weeks ago..you can't without researching it yourself. Links can be kept in instagram stories and you can 'swipe up' which will take you to the link. Stories are kept up for only twenty four hours unless the account decides to keep them at the top of the page in 'highlight bubbles', these bubbles, when filled with articles, will become cluttered and busy, less people will go on them.
The feed of the account will become rather messy too, with no concise theme with the photos to the articles since they aren't meant to 'match'. The page then becomes unaesthetically pleasing, compared to other accounts (not necessarily magazine accounts) which keep a theme, they will get much less traction.
The captions of article posts will include reference to this article with maybe a snippet or leaving a 'blurb' of the contents to entice the reader to engage. With posts of an actual photoshoot, they will reference starring celebrity, as well as tagging the production crew, including the photographer, make up artist, lighting and hair stylist. If person tagged has an instagram account they will tag this account instead of just writing their name - shown above.
The header of the page shows a black and white photo which is dissimilar to the typical bright red bold colours of the brand, the lack of colour and old fashion cameras show that the photo is from an old red carpet in the twentieth century. This is probably an homage to their start and shows respect to how times have changed over the years.
The content that the account posts is similar to the instagram, however they tend to only post the headline and the link, not the whole caption/ blurb. This is something which appeals to the facebook demographic as the users don't like to read a lot of pointless content. Also, in instagram the caption is hidden, but here, everything posted is seen on the main page, this would create a messy aesthetic and make the user scroll a lot, which make them disengaged.
OVERALL:
Overall, I think that the brand has adapted really well to the online experience, they know how to use their social media to connect to the audience of that particular platform. For example, not posting the caption to their facebook, yet inc;uding articles of the current top celebrities on instagram where their fans will engage.
Comments