Over the summer period I secured a placement at La Vida magazine which is a manchester based fashion, night and lifestyle magazine. I started my internship working for their first summer issue creating look books and mock up magazine covers for the photoshoot which I really enjoyed. This experience expanded my interest in creative direction and the design of magazine covers.
A magazine created purely for those who enjoy ‘the finer things in life’.
About La Vida
The magazine was established in 2012 and has 4 issues in total that come out seasonally. The first issue is called 'The Begging which was released September the 15th. The magazine is free and is distributed in nightclubs, radio stations and local shops.
The magazine also has various social networking sites that attract it's target audience. Including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram where they post regular updates of what the team has been up to and magazine features. The magazine can also be read online on Issu to reach a target market outside of Manchester.
They also have their own TV channel called La Vida TV that showcases interviews with celebrities that is published on Youtube and Vimeo. La Vida also has an official website that acts like a blog for the readers to find out more and for instant updates on fashion, lifestyle and nightlife.
History
La Vida magazine was created by Anthony Logan, who is the Creative Director. Other managing roles in the company include;
Abanoob Anton – Publisher.
Andreas Anastasiou – Marketing Director.
Athina Macpherson – Managing Editor.
Although the magazine is very new it has caught a lot of media attention from the celebrities they manage to interview and the trends the cover. Some of the celebrities include Ne-yo, Wretch 32, Oliver Proudlock and Misha B. Also as a new business they are expanding the company to Liverpool in the summer where there will be another launch of the magazine to build the franchise.
Target Audience
La vida magazines clientele is targeted at young business professionals with interests in fashion, entertainment music, nightlife and lifestyle aged between 20-30, but is also described as "an alternative fashion, lifestyle and nightlife publication for everyone and anyone to enjoy."
Why Do You Think It's Interesting?
Fashion is a prominent visual art industry that demands a persistent leading edge of creativity. Graphic designers have been involved with various aspects of the fashion industry since the early twentieth century. Graphic designers of fashion have represented the core values of their brand while pushing boundaries and expectations.
Having first hand experience of what it's like to work for a fashion magazine has expanded my knowledge of how to design for a particular target market and keeping up with specific trends and styles. I like how certain magazines aquire a specific font, style and layout depending on the topic. I found that a main interest of mine was working with type, colour and fashion photography to create a possible theme for a magazine cover.
This then prompted me to look into different era's of magazine cover design to see what skills and applications were used and how they have developed over time.
80S
In the 1980's there was an explosion of a postmodern style emerging. The covers were brighter and more experimental and there was a variation of fashion trends and groups from the new romantics to valley girls that influenced this. Also MTV was launched in the 80's which also had a massive effect on magazines as a surge of super models and entertainers graced the covers.
Why Do You Think It's Interesting?
Fashion is a prominent visual art industry that demands a persistent leading edge of creativity. Graphic designers have been involved with various aspects of the fashion industry since the early twentieth century. Graphic designers of fashion have represented the core values of their brand while pushing boundaries and expectations.
Having first hand experience of what it's like to work for a fashion magazine has expanded my knowledge of how to design for a particular target market and keeping up with specific trends and styles. I like how certain magazines aquire a specific font, style and layout depending on the topic. I found that a main interest of mine was working with type, colour and fashion photography to create a possible theme for a magazine cover.
This then prompted me to look into different era's of magazine cover design to see what skills and applications were used and how they have developed over time.
MAGAZINE COVERS OVER TIME.
30s
30s
Over the course of the 1930s, there was a general change in the style of women’s fashion from that of the previous decade and the re-introduction of the natural waist line and longer skirt lengths gave the female form a more elegant and slender look which is depicted in the issues below.
The cultural and political times of the 1930's have influenced the design magazine covers through the use of attitudes that supposedly grew more mature and elegant after the 20's. Also the time era had a strong sense of facisim that possibly suggests why the illustrations of the females were white.
The cover was directed by editor Allison Settle of the time and uses a colourful illustration to depict a 1930's woman. The cover uses bold block colours of white, green and red which connotes a sense of freshness and elegance. The typography is hand rendered and is in a script style which also contributes the elegant style. The composition of the cover also looks at the woman in a sophisticated location reading Vogue as a source of inspiration and entertainment. The stock of the cover is very grainy suggesting it was either designed on sketch paper to get this effect. The style is very simplistic with no use of tag lines or snippets of what the magazine entails suggesting that the image alone attracted a strong and knowing target market. The cover attracts a target market of middle class women as in that era there was in infamous wall street crash which effected the worlds economy and bringing it into a period of austerity.
The 1933 cover design was illustrated by Erté, his fashion drawings were colourful and his elaborate couture designs put the magazine at the forefront of creative innovation. Similarly like the image above the cover is all hand rendered and the texture of the cover is grainy, again suggesting it was either designed on sketch paper to get this effect. The cover uses bright and dark colours colours, and the silhouette of the woman in the forefront connotes a sense of mystery and sexuality. Like the Vogue cover there is a sense of elegance through the location of the drawing which looks like she's in a extravagant home with a open garden which depicts the culture of that time and the hope for prosperity. The typefaces used interchange between both script and san serif which shows the development of type a year later.
The covers of this time relied on innovative fashion illustrators to curate an image for women to aspire to be like. Using paint and pencils to bring the images to life.
Highlights
- Illustration
- Elegance
- No eye contact
- Personal / Aspirational
- Extravagant
45-50S
60S
The 1960s featured a number of diverse trends. It was a decade that broke many fashion traditions, mirroring social movements during the time. After designer Mary Quant introduced the mini-skirt in 1964, fashions of the 1960s were changed forever.
In the 1960's under the editorial direction of Helen Gurley Brown, Cosmopolitan pironeered its then radical message to women "Live big, go for it, be the best you can be in everyday life", Suggesting that women were more independant and had a new lease for life. The women on the covers became more sexy and confident from what has been shown in the previous covers above. The script fonts used in the 30's have been replaced by bold and block capitals to show off a sense of authority and more type is used on the covers to attract a target audience to show whats inside the issue.
The front cover of Bazaar uses a collaging technique over the left eye were Ruth Anderson cut out a section by layering one coloured image on top of a black and white one to get this effect. The magazine exudes a sense sophistication and the small collage effect on the eye makes it look edgy. The use of photography also shows how technology has come along and the development of the front cover magazine style.
The invention of the automatic camera also changed the cover of the magazine world as photographs were being used instead of the illustrations that were the forefront in the 30s. By the 1960s, however, low-cost electronic components were commonplace and cameras equipped with light meters and automatic exposure systems became increasingly widespread.
Highlights
- Bold serif typefaces
- Automatic photography of fashion models
- Puffs and plugs of what the magazine entails
- Readable type alignment
- More bright colour introduced
- Grainy paper
80S
In the 1980's there was an explosion of a postmodern style emerging. The covers were brighter and more experimental and there was a variation of fashion trends and groups from the new romantics to valley girls that influenced this. Also MTV was launched in the 80's which also had a massive effect on magazines as a surge of super models and entertainers graced the covers.
This is a magazine cover by Tony Viramontez who had a lot of influence in the 1980's fashion and magazine scene. His illustrations over photography really defined a new postmodern style for that era. The images are bold, bright and edgy and the experimentation with type alignment broke the rules of what was used before.
I-D magazine in the 80's was at the forefront of experimenting with type and image and creating a more handmade/ postmodern looks. There are techniques of collaging used with bright bold colours to attract a more edgy and rebellious crowd. The use of different typefaces specifically digital that create a futuristic look and changing the face of the cover magazine world.
Highlights
- digital collage
- layering
- unorthodox typefaces and alignment
- bright and bold colours / patterns
- celebrities and supermodels to attract a audience
- price from
20S
The 2000's saw a rise in tehcnology with the development of the computer, internet and design software such as adobe and microsoft. This then effectively allowed designers to push the boundaries on what they could produce and present on the cover of a magazine.
The 2000's saw a rise in tehcnology with the development of the computer, internet and design software such as adobe and microsoft. This then effectively allowed designers to push the boundaries on what they could produce and present on the cover of a magazine.
This is a issue from the underground fashion magazine POP, the cover experimented with 3D and 2D type and it's aligment, shape and colour a sense futurism. Also the model is a main factor as she isn't someone who would be aspired to look at neccesarily but would shocked by, thus attracting an audience to see what the magazine is about.
Again with this magazine there is a big development in type use, magazines have progressed in experimenting with typography to create a attractive front cover by using the negative space in the image to create catchy tag lines. Also the development of camera high quality and stock choice had progressively changed making the overall aesthetic of the magazine more sleek, high end and desirable.
Highlights
- introduction of my typography forms
- sleeker photography and stock
- studio based photography
- more genres and styles e.g high end, avant garde, underground
- price from
* four small issues from each decade*
Looking through these four decades has significantly shown how magazine covers have developed overtime through social, political and technological issues. From the 30s were they relied on fashion illustrators to now were they rely on technology, and graphical skills is something I find really interesting.
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