PRODUCTION - website

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Television article

For my website I aimed to use the ew.com (Entertainment Weekly magazine) and empire.com (Empire magazine) as a template for a working website of an entertainment magazine. This is because I felt they reflected my target audience - young and fun-loving - most from research.

I used the bright colours yellow and pink as a colour scheme, which gives brand identity towards the latest issue of my magazine (Gossip Girl cover). These choices of colour were also made to connote positivity and energy which is highly promoted in the Hearst branding and strong characteristics of a young, fun-loving audience.

The pink mobile phone is used as an 'Easter Egg' for audiences. By finding these and clicking on them, the audience is brought to a page which gives them extra inside gossip and deals. The mobile phone icon is also intertextual with the texts and posts from the series Gossip Girl. This extra detail creates a sense of exclusivity to those who visit the website, making them potentially want to revisit the website again in the future. Here are some examples I currently have:

This is the Easter Egg which audiences need to find and click on to access:

PRODUCTION - contents feedback

After printing both of my contents pages first final drafts, it was apparent to me that the dimensions were not correct for a magazine:
-firstly, the text was far too big, therefore I need to make this smaller and add more stories in order to bulk this up
-my centre line was slightly off centre (to the right), therefore this needs to be shifted
-the 'what to watch' section looks quite messy, I feel that when making the text and images slightly smaller this might neaten the section up

PRODUCTION - website article

Once I had written the article, I then added some extra graphics:

I put the two boxes at the start and end of the article in order to give some context to audiences who had not watched Shondaland or knew what it was about. This also presented it in an easy and fun way with the bright house colour of yellow.

I also had many photos from my photoshoot, therefore added several collages of these embedded in the article.

To round off the article and add a sense of professionalism, I added links and related content which might interest the reader further. This also keeps them interested in staying on the website for longer, therefore creating a increasing interest for THE INSIDER brand.

PRODUCTION - website article

Again, for my article I took inspiration from examples on ew.com in order to make the mode of address as realistic for an entertainment magazine website as possible.

The headline is big, bold and attracts the audience with key words such as 'reveals', 'gossip' and 'crazy' alongside the name of the shows star 'Ella Findlay' which would attract fans.
I also carried throughout my website and print magazine a sense of brand identity with the continuous play on words with my masthead 'THE INSIDER' using it here to represent the interview as being exclusive content that no one else has heard of and knows about. Therefore, the content they read is unique to this magazine and website.
My layout using conventions such as the authors name, date, time, social media links and links to other pages on the website in order to create a realistic aesthetic.

The article itself is laid out in a question - response format, like an interview would be spoken as this creates another level of informality in the mode of address. This would make it easier to read as it is 'chunked' in paragraphs, therefore attracting the target demographic.

PRODUCTION - first final draft feedback

 

I got members of my target demographic to give feedback on my two front covers to see what they felt could be improved for final tweaks. Some points which I am going to take into consideration and further adjust on my covers include:
-007 logo seemed 'out of place' and 'wonky'
-main images should stand out more = on 007 copy, the lighting was dark on the model & on GG copy, the main model image should be more prominent over the top of the other smaller models
-when printed, the dimensions of text and image were far too big for a magazine cover, therefore, the coverline stories need to be slightly smaller so they do not take away from the main article

PLANNING - website inspiration

From my research into entertainment magazine websites, I felt that Entertainment Weekly captured the mode of address that I wanted for my magazine's brief:

It has a simplistic layout in order to let the content speak for itself and easy navigation throughout.
I also liked the 'what to watch' section, therefore incorporated this into my website too as it captures the entertainment genre of the magazine.
Through the ew.com website I also noticed a lot of graphics such as the square above with a 'play' arrow inside and boxes with 'EXCLUSIVE' which attract the slightly younger and fun-loving demographic. This inspired my Easter Egg's to be attached to mobile phone graphics many more.