Semiotics

Semiotics - Science of signs

The combination of the signifier and signified makes a SIGN

Arbitrary System - Written language is arbitrary - Made-up system

The Four F's of Magazine Design

1. FORMAT: Design choices that span every issue. These define a magazine's overall look and feel. These include the logo, cover lines, size of the magazine, department headers and other things that look the same each issue
2. FORMULA: This is known as editorial content (i.e. what's in the mag). The types of article, their length, departments in the front and back of the book (sections that are in the mag each time) all contribute to the formula.
3. FRAME: The frame is the standard size for outer page margins and gutters. Some magazines use the same margin width through the magazines; others vary the width, using tall top margins for features to set apart the well, for instance. The rule for using margins establishes consistency from issue to issue.
4. FUNCTION: The function is, quite simply, what a magazine is trying to achieve and the message it's trying to send.

Consistency - Magazine should have a familiar look each time
Unity - United feel to the magazine

My magazine name ideas

Are music magazines doomed?

Yes

• People are not likely to pay for information they can get for free
• Magazines can't respond as quickly as the internet can respond
• Magazines don't fit with our multi-tasking world
• We like to use convergent devices (e.g. iPads, phones, etc.)
• We like to access information at anytime, anywhere
• Magazines need high sales and high advertising revenue, making them very expensive to produce

No

• Steve Auckland Metro Publishing told InPublishing: "90% plus of our money is coming from print"
• Diane Kenwood, IPC: "There is still a lot of money to be made from the sale of magazines: £2 billion worth are purchased every year, 2.6 million of them are sold in the UK every day. They're read by 87% of the British population"
• It can be hard to monetise the internet. It is especially hard to get people to subscribe to online magazines/newspapers, e.g. The Sun 
• Many things have been predicted to be doomed (cinemas with the advent of TV, Radio with the advent of Breakfast TV...) But they are still here!

Youth Culture

Youth Culture

Definition: Youth culture is the way adolescents live, and the norms, values, and practices they share.

 Culture is the shared symbolic systems, and processes of maintaining and transforming those systems. Youth culture differs from the culture of older generations. Youth Culture can include beliefs, behaviors, styles, and interests. An emphasis on clothes, popular music, sports, vocabulary, and dating set adolescents apart from other age groups, giving them what many believe is a distinct culture of their own. Within youth culture, there are many distinct and constantly changing youth subcultures. These subcultures' norms, values, behaviors, and styles vary widely, and may differ from the general youth culture. Understanding what adolescents think and do is fundamental to understanding the relationship between structure and agency, social patterns and individual action.

(Research from Wikipedia)

Penumbra Effect

The penumbra effect describes small groups not in the target audience. The Penumbra Effect in media is the amount of unexpected audience that doesn't fit into the general audience of that genre. A niche magazine could have a Penumbra Effect where the magazine has been targeted specifically and carefully at a group of people but there still ends up being a small amount of people that don't fit into that.