This magazine front cover represents exactly what Cornwall is famous for, its beaches and coastline. It does this by having an image of a beach and a surfer as the background and the text "Dive into Newquay's beach culture". Using Newquay as one of the main features is good because this is one of Cornwall's most famous towns, known all across the UK for its beaches and night life. This means that the audience for this magazine does not have to be just people living in Cornwall, but anyone from around the country with an interest in this county. However, the main image and the mise-en-scene used (somebody wearing a wetsuit and holding a wetsuit whilst looking over the cliff at the beach and sea) suggests this magazine will feature a lot about surfing which narrows down the target audience to people who have an interest in surfing and because it features a young boy, it could be said that this magazine is meant to appeal to a young audience but because it mentions enjoying 'a walk around the Lizard Peninsula' and planning 'your dream Cornish wedding' this boosts the mass of audience it will appeal to, but it is likely that this causes it to lose the teenage audience as they will not be interested in planning a wedding, walking or growing their own herbs etc.
This cover does not suggest whether the target gender is male or female because it has no gender specific colour scheme and regional magazines tend not to ever have a target gender however there is a slightly higher chance that it may be aimed at males as there is a male on the front which means they will be able to relate to it whilst women will not. It does suggest however through lexical choices that the social class it appeals to is B-A as to be able to enjoy some of the luxuries in this magazine you must have a disposable income. For instance, at the bottom of this cover it says that you can 'plan your dream Cornish wedding' with this magazine but for many people this really is just a dream as they can not afford it. Another example is because Cornwall is a popular holiday destination and holidays cost a lot, especially to stay by the beach. More lexical choices that indicate a target audience of the higher social grades are the mention of 'Trewithen Estate', a large country house in Cornwall owned by people on the same social grades as the reader and a place that people from the social grades of the target audience are likely to visit, and the mention of the Isles of Scilly and their World Pilot Gig Championships, a boating competition in the Isles Of Scilly. This is highly likely to appeal to people belonging to high social grades such as B and A as boats are fairly expensive so they are the only people who will be able to afford it. Also, to get to the Isles Of Scilly, the recommended mode of transport is a helicopter, a fairly costly mode of transport and one that is stereotypically associated with the higher classes.
The text found on this magazine differs from magazines of other genres such as Vogue or NME and this is because they each have different aims. For example, this magazine's main aim is not to look particularly arty or aesthetically pleasing but rather just get the content and information across whereas Vogue holds a high reputation of making sure their magazine looks glamourous as their target audience is different from this magazine. This is why on this cover the text seems a bit random as there is 3 different fonts in 3 different sizes and each teaser is placed in no particular order, because their target audience is not likely to notice or care about it. I would like to take conventions from both of these magazines as I am creating a mix of fashion and regional. The typography choices use on this front cover imitate the personas of the target audience of this magazine. This is because one of the font choices is particularly 'fancy' and posh which is likely to be a stereotype that a proportion of the target audience fits in to. There are many different typography styles used which also imitates the target audience as the audience includes a range of different type of people (this is because it is mainly aimed at people living in Cornwall - a county that is inhabited by people from a range of different lifestyle backgrounds).
As the masthead of 'Cornwall Life' is on an image of a surfer and the beach, it suggests that this is exactly what life in Cornwall is like. The editors of this magazine have been clever in choosing this masthead as it ties in with the main image but on every issue they must make sure there is a main image that makes life in Cornwall look heavenly. The main image represents what the masthead suggests. By doing this, it is as if the magazine is talking directly to the reader which is a convention that is strongly recommended to include in a front cover because it draws the audience in more effectively as they are likely to already feel involved in the magazine and as if they are already a part of it, rewarding the reader and making them enjoy the experience more. All of the text on this cover contains a drop shadow in order to make it stand out more, however, the masthead does not. This is interesting as a common convention of a front cover is that the masthead stands out more and dominates the cover more than any other text on the page in order to catch the audience's eye easily; this means this cover challenges common conventions.
This magazine is different to the typical regional magazine as it is aimed at a niche market, people who are getting married and more specifically, brides. I can tell this because it has a picture of a woman in a wedding dress on the front, supposingly a bride, but there is no groom in the picture. This could be perceived as stereotypical as it suggests only women read wedding magazines and that men do not. The age range of the target audience will be between 24 - 40 as this is the typical age people get married, this narrows the target audience even further. They are also likely to be in the social grades C1-A as weddings are generally quite an expensive event which means people in lower social grades than these will most likely not be able to afford it as they will not have a disposable income to spend on luxuries. This narrows the target audience even further, confirming that this magazine is definitely aimed at a niche market/audience. However, according the Gandal (2007), social grades C1-B are the 'social norm' which means that this magazine may actually appeal to a larger group of people than originally thought.
The only things that suggest this is a regional magazine is the beach/coastline in the background and also the tagline of "Cornwall's fabulous wedding magazine" which is not a strong feature but it does prove that regional magazines can be more heavily involved in another genre as well as regional (fashion, music, film etc). I chose to analyse this magazine as I am creating a regional magazine that is mixed with another genre (fashion) so this will inform me of common conventions found on them in order to make it easier for me to create an effective front cover. The connotations of people that stereotypically use the word 'fabulous' is women and homosexual men. This is another convention that contributes towards my idea that this magazine is aimed specifically to women.
The target audience is not directly addressed on this cover (except for the woman on the front giving women readers something to relate to and also making it slightly more obvious that this magazine is aimed at women by not giving men anything to relate to) but rather the whole of the county of Cornwall. This means that the audience will not feel a personal connection to it which may affect the effect it has on them in terms of whether they choose to purchase it and whether they are attracted to it when it is on a shop shelf, but also it may mean that the magazine may attract a wider audience as it can be read by a wider audience than just the bride, which would have been the only audience reading it if it had said 'Your wedding magazine' instead of 'Cornwall's wedding magazine'. However, the main image does heavily suggest the audience they want this to be read by as there is just a woman in a wedding dress (mise-en-scene), assumably the bride, but no groom.
The teasers on this cover suggest stereotypically that women are the primary audience of this magazine as they are features that stereotypically, mainly women will be interested in, for instance the lexical choice of the teaser, 'dreamy new season dresses', is obviously a feature that only applies and appeals to women as they are the ones wearing a dress in the wedding and are likely to be the only gender that dreams about wedding dresses. 'True romance' and 'Ever after' are phrases that have connotations surrounding them that they stereotypically are only things that women would say and want as stereotypically males are generally not thought of as being romantic. The teasers (as well as all the other features on this front cover including the masthead and bar code) are strategically laid out in order to make the most of the main feature of the main image (the woman in the wedding dress and the Cornish coastline in the background). They are also laid out in order to overlap the white column on the left-hand-side of the cover (which is most likely there in order to an a slightly unique tone to the front cover and set it apart from any other magazines, making it more likely to be noticed and remembered by the audience.
The masthead is in the sweet spot of the page (top left-hand corner) which means that when it is on the shelf, it has a large chance of being seen and noticed even if there are other magazines covering it. The typography styles of the masthead mean that it is likely to be noticed as it is bold, large and a colour that contrasts with the background and makes it stand out. This masthead is very different to the previous one (Cornwall Life) in the way of its thickness and font choice. This helps to differentiate between the 2 different target audiences for each magazine as well as the different aims for the 2 magazines and it also says that they are each aimed at different social grades (Cornwall Life being a higher social grade than Wed because the font used for Cornwall Life is classic and professional whereas the font used for Wed is slightly more unique and is not a font choice that is seen being used for mastheads very often). This shows that this magazine has rejected common conventions of magazines and has tried to go for a more original look, which may be because this is an original genre with only a small amount of other counties around the UK creating magazines of this genre.
When creating regional magazines, the editors and writers have to take into account Higson's theory that "identity is generally understood to be the shared identity of naturalised inhabitants of a particular political-geographical space". This means that when marketing something at the entire population of a certain area (whether it be a town, country or country), you have to take into account that there will be a lot of different types of people and attempt to find the median of the people in order to have a bit that everyone will enjoy. It also means that there is an increased risk of stereotypes being used as if someone was creating something for an area that they did not know much about, the only information they are likely to have is that which they've heard in stereotypes (for instance, girls from Essex are stereotyped as wearing a lot of heavy make up and not many clothes, but this is not likely to actually be the case).
The major convention that makes it unique and sets it apart from other regional magazines is that the main image is in a cartoon style, rather than a conventional photograph. This suggests that the target audience is slightly different to the first front cover I analysed as the cartoon style suggests it is a more modern magazine and is aimed to be directed at a more media based person, it almost gives me the feel that this is a downloadable magazine (mainly because the images were created on a computer instead of being photographed), and because of these reasons the target audience is likely to be a niche group of people as not everyone will enjoy this style and will not be able to adapt to this from a normal magazine style. This is also a reason why this is likely to be a downloadable magazine, as because it is only targeted at a small group of people the cost of printing physical copies of it will be too high and they will make little to no profit, whereas if it is a downloadable magazine it will most likely be sold cheaper than a normal magazine (between £0 - £2 rather than £3 - £6). Another reason why I get the impression that this is a e-magazine is an interesting feature at the bottom of this cover that says you can win 'a luxury holiday in Cornwall'. This is interesting as this is a regional magazine aimed at people living in Cornwall and as they already live here, they will not be interested in winning a luxury holiday here.
This relates to the Modernism era in which traditional and classic looks were rejected and replaced with more abstract and arty looks. This magazine front cover has successfully done this as it is a cartoon, something that is modern and challenges generic magazine front covers that instead just use a traditional photograph as their main image. Another thing that shows Modernism is the name of the magazine, 'myCornwall'. The way they have used a lower case 'm' and put the 2 words together challenges conventions of generic magazine names as these are normally always separate words and have correct uses of capitilisation.
As I stated before, the target audience of this magazine is likely to be someone who has a job in the media and appreciates this style of front cover. This means that the demographics of the target reader is likely to be a 30-60 year old, white, male in a social grade between C1-A (as if they had a job in the media, they are likely to be an established professional with a solid career, earning a good wage). Stereotypically, cartoons are usually only consumed by children which means this magazine had to make sure that they included teasers on the front cover of features that definitely are not aimed at children in order to dismiss this issue.
Some evidence of excellent research and focus on both target audience and similar product conventions as well as reference to the creative process of your own magazine.
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