In my textual analysis I analysed three front covers, The Sunday times Travel, Arthur Frommers Budget Travel and Family Young Travels. All magazines had different target audiences but still all included top holiday destinations, which were aimed at different groups of people. Firstly I analysed The Sunday times travel which I intended to base my front cover on as its target audience is A’s and B’s who are willing to pay £3.40 for a monthly magazine which gives information generally on locations which would be expensive to visit e.g. Shanghai, South Pacific and Chicago. This magazine was also aimed at people aged 30 and over, similar to my questionnaire results. It was obvious that this was aimed at people over thirty as the things featured would not be appealing to young people. The colour scheme was also simple but highlighted the key information, and the image used was effective and by including an attractive woman on a yacht it made the magazine front cover more desirable. Next I analysed ‘Budget Travel’ a magazine which clearly targets C’s and D’s who don’t have as much disposable income to spend on luxurious holidays, even though the front cover does not include a price I am able to tell who the intended audience is as some of the feature are names ‘vacations for real people’ and it is also aimed at family’s as it is a ‘family travel special’ which will encourage more people to purchase the magazine as family holidays can be quite expensive. Finally I analysed a magazine that specifically targets family’s. ‘Family Young Travels’ is priced at £2.25 per month which is reasonable for family’s who have to spend there money on there children, but the magazine features exotic locations e.g. Mauritius and Port Louis both expensive locations which are made desirable in this magazine. The layout is simple but the bold text is effective and the image relates to the title of ‘family young’.
As a result of using both my questionnaire results and my textual analyse I came to the conclusion that my magazine’s target audience is mainly A’s and B’s as luxurious destinations are clearly made more desirable on magazine front cover’s, I also decided that I’m going to price y magazine at £4.10, a reasonable price for my chosen target market who want advice on the best holiday destinations. I have also identified that for my front cover I need to use a simple but effective image which I can then relate to the title, and also the features included, also the colours and fonts I need to use will need to be simple as I don’t want to include too much writing on the front cover.
My main production included two front covers, and a double page spread on my topic of travel. Firstly I did a magazine front cover based on cruise holidays, I made the audience aware of the main theme of the magazine by using a picture of a cruise ship which was docked in to a harbor as the cover image, I used a lower angle long shot to make the boat look bigger, I also included the mountain range in the background. I supported this image by using cover lines such as ‘instant escapes- Caribbean, Baltic and transatlantic’ all popular cruise destinations, which linked to the image well. Also I used basic colours (white and turquoise) to make the front cover simple but attractive, also the colours closely relate to the colours of the sea, another link to the cruise holiday theme.
In comparison, my second magazine front cover wasn’t based on a type of holiday, but it was based on an area of the world, the Mediterranean. I used bold colours on the front cover to make the most important bits of information stand out. Also the layout of the second magazine is much different to the first, the masthead ‘world’ and slogan ‘play|eat|relax|shop|explore’ are all in the same places, but on this magazine I used an extreme long shot image of a hill overlooking the harbor, it diagonally crosses the page allowing the surrounding cover lines to be placed effectively around it. I priced both magazines at £4.10 as my questionnaire shown people were willing to pay more for a good quality magazine; I also linked both front covers to the time of year which was written underneath the price.
My double page spread linked briefly to my front cover, however I based the double page spread on British city breaks. Birmingham being a cosmopolitan city would be a likely destination for my target audience of A’s and B’s to visit, In my article I mentioned all the things Birmingham has to offer making it a more desirable place for people to visit. The theme being ‘winter breaks’ my article, and the image all had to reflect on the cover line ‘winter weekend breaks in Birmingham’ the image was taken late afternoon so the Christmas lights were more visible, also Brindley Place in Birmingham was an excellent area to take the image as it isn’t too busy, and it has lots of small bars, restaurants and shops.
Compared with a double page spread in the free travel magazine ‘Beyond’, mine is very similar as I used an image which covered the majority of the page and wrote the article on the right hand side of the page.
