Planning: pitch

 For my NEA coursework I’m aiming to produce a magazine with two issues that showcases the beauty and true reality of human individuality, and to embrace the differences between each person – while combating the unrealistic beauty and body standards that have held dominant in contemporary society. Because the target audience for the product is a 14-25 aspirational audience I want to encourage aspiration for individuality via my magazine, without setting standards that are unachievable or damaging for an impressionable audience.  

Because the brief requires two issues, I’m planning on adopting the basic conventions of other Hearst magazines and creating one magazine centred around fashion, and another on skin/beauty. Each edition will tackle separate standards and stereotypes that I want to combat, while including a variety of different articles carefully formulated for the target audience. I aim to focus on the editorial and high fashion aspects of other magazine products, while celebrating realistic beauty in an achievable manner.  

Magazine 1: beauty/skincare 

This edition is going to be centred around the growing interest and scientific development of skincare, whilst addressing and combatting the unrealistic ‘perfect skin’ stereotypes that skincare products make the ultimate goal. Embracing textured and different skin has become a hard issue to tackle, especially in the 14-25 age range, and I aim to show that even with a variety of different skin textures, beauty is not affected by what skin looks like.  

In order to achieve this, the models that I use in my photographs will have their skin shown as naturally as possible, with minimal skin makeup to embrace the topic issue, and editing will not be done to remove or blur texture etc.  

Shoot ideas:  

• -Moderate and plain backgrounds, so the pictures of the models are showcased and emphasised in the best way possible 

• -The eye makeup shall be bright, bold and unique, as to adhere and match to the editorial/aspirational nature of the magazine 

• -Face/base makeup shall be kept to a minimum as to not hide ‘natural skin’ and to represent the beauty of not being ashamed to have textured skin 

• -Shots of products that are either mentioned in the articles or just on the cover – adopting the more consumerist conventions of magazines

  -recreate famous makeup looks, for example david bowie or twiggy ( but not those for definite)

 

Magazine 2: fashion / lifestyle 

This issue is going to be centred around the development of individual and unique fashion, by cohering with the typical Hearst magazine layouts as well as referencing to high fashion brands and companies to appeal to the aspiring audience. I am for my covers to have quite simplistic images, focused on the model and the outfits with plain backgrounds and in order for the images and magazines to stand out I aim to dress my models in eyecatching bold outfits that are not considered the ‘norm’ for typical fashion. I’m aiming to challenge societal conventions surrounding individual representation and demonstrate how fashion can be used to enable people to express themselves. 

Shoot ideas:

- different themes and mis en scenes will be shown through different backgrounds in the shots, mainly for the internal images and the online site. 

- plain moderate backgrounds for the front covers, to replicate the higher fashion brands and to ensure that the models and outfits are the main focus of the cover.  

- Fashion should replicate the high fashion individual ' clean' look that’s particularly popular with young people right now. The ideas I have currently is to use female models in typically ‘masculine clothing’ as well as mimicking the high fashion houses appearance on a 'lower budget'

-models will represent a range of different social groups to promote the diversity associated with my magazine - which is important to the target audience (mainly through sexuality, gender and race)

 

Possible articles (either for the coverlines or internal articles):

- review the reintroduction of 90s trends, low rise jeans etc

- 'can tiktok be trusted?' - reviewing the viral skincare and makeup trends of tiktok, seeing if products are actually worthy of the attention they gather online

- interviews of young people that use their fashion and appearance to express themselves, and how they have grown to be more comfortable with themselves over time

- analysing the impossible standard that fashion and beauty standards set for young people (mainly skin and body types)

- the contradicting pressures of the guilt about fast fashion and growing prices on young people.