Saturday, March 18, 2017

Summer Fever

"A life without love is like a year without summer."

....and, I'm back, here to please and appease with another update.

So, I am hoping from the quote above that you guys figured out that I will be doing a summer issue for Relatable Magazine!!!!

The month I'm doing specifically is June. What's not great about June? There's no school, sunny skies and warm weather, no school, time to relax on the beach and spend with friends, and did I mention no school?

While this may be going through all of your heads, as I know it is in mine, this is not the only thing that makes June amazing. June is filled with the beginning of summer trends, such as beach attire and swimsuits, night-time clothing. It is also a time filled with pulled back hair styles to avoid the heat, new makeup looks, and foodies exploring foods, possibly from foreign countries on a vacation.

Whatever the case, we all love June and we all love summer. Now, the question is, what do I put into a June/Summer-themed issue that does not overwhelm readers yet keeps them hooked on Relatable Magazine and wanting more. So far, I only have one big idea: clothing.

It's well known that winter trends come out in the fall, spring trends come out in the winter, summer trends come out in spring... I'm sure you all get the point. Seeing as it is now spring, these summer styles are hitting runways and are being prepared to be shipped out to retail clothing stores so they can stock up on their summer attire.

So, how does this tie in to Relatable you may ask? I can pull information from these sources, perhaps from a New York or London fashion week, and apply it to an article in the magazine.

One source I used was Vogue UK's website; the article was titled, "Spring/Summer Trends To Know Now." The link is provided at the bottom of the page. I hope you all will look at it to see the extent of the inspiration I took off of it!

http://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/spring-summer-2017-fashion-trends


Friday, March 17, 2017

Round and round and round in the Circle Game

"Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening really begins in January with the dream." ~Josephine Nuese

...And I have returned once more to update everyone on Relatable Magazine's process!

So, the quote above discusses gardening. While I myself love gardening, as do many women in my family as the admiration seems to have been passed down, I unfortunately will not be discussing gardening. But it's okay, don't cry; truthfully I will discussing something better.

My reasoning behind providing the quote above was because it spoke of seasons and months, aspects of a year. Recently, my group and I decided Relatable Magazine will have twelve issues a year, one for each month. With this decision begs the question: what is so special about having monthly issues?

For starters, Relatable Magazine is not similar to magazines such as People or US Weekly. The magazines greatly differ in content to Relatable; they can be considered as 'news' magazines, and thus explains why they produce so many issues over the course of a year. Because Relatable is fashion and lifestyle and not news, an issue does not need to be provided weekly. Weekly issues may seem like an overload to our intended target and could cause them to abandon Relatable for a competitor. This is something my group and I desperately want to avoid.

Monthly magazines keep trends fresh. I know that whenever I read a fashion and lifestyle magazine, I feel inspired to alter my style to be more 'trendy.' If Relatable was published weekly, it would lose this sense of 'freshness' that I desire for it to obtain. (For reference, I referred to the Teen Vogue monthly issues. A link to view some of Teen Vogue's covers is located at the bottom of this post!

So, with all of that being said, my group and I decided to come up with twelve different topics (one for each month of course) and we would each choose one; three issues of Relatable will be produced for my Foundation Portfolio. They are provided in the picture below.



I will update you all on when I choose a monthly issue to cover, and I cannot wait until then <3



Sunday, March 12, 2017

Hitting the Bullseye

 "The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product fits him and sells itself." ~Peter F. Drucker

Hey there! It's Hayley again, updating everyone with another blog post!

The quote I choose to discuss this post focuses on marketing. To me, marketing is promoting and selling products or services to a group of people (the target audience) through the use of advertising. Though this definition varies among people, it is clear that marketing is all about getting a product or a service from point A (the manufacturer or retailer) to point B (the consumer).

As I said in my previous post, Relatable Magazine's target audience was teenage and young adult women. For those of you who don't know the definition of a target audience, I am here to inform you! A target audience, according to dictionary.com, is "the intended group for which something is performed or marketed; the specific group to which advertising is directed."

It is not only imperative to identify a target audience, but it is also important to divulge into who they are as people: their average age, their average income, and even perhaps their race. All of this information compiles together so that marketers know their audience.

Since Relatable is going to be a magazine that is comparable to that of Teen Vogue and Seventeen Magazine, I decided to look into their target market demographics: their audiences are the same as ours. Demographics of Seventeen Magazine are located here.

The demographic point that stuck out the most to me was Seventeen Magazines aspiration for teenage girls to find their own style through reading magazines. Teenage and young adult women feel that magazines are essential to staying in the loop of current styles and trends. My goal for Relatable Magazine is for our target audience to feel like Relatable is essential in order to keep up with current styles and trends.