Appealing to an Audience

Robyn Collinson

Elle’s target audience are women over 18, with 5,088,000 readers out of the total amount, 5,644,000, being female with a median age of 36. The magazine also produces a digital edition

available on Apple products, which reaches 38,000 readers each month. The average house hold income for Elle readers is $76,052/£46,367. 67.8% of readers are employed and 43.2% of

those are single. Typically, Elle advertises products/brands targeted at either women or products that are unisex and very rarely advertise things solemnly towards the male audience.

Images

Every Elle magazine is different, meaning that they don’t stick to the same color scheme. For example, this one with Miley Cyrus as the cover star has blatantly stuck to a black on white theme, with the only splash of colour of the cover, being the word ‘Fashion’. This particular edition would of attracted audience to buy this issue because of Miley Cyrus being the cover star. Miley is a popular singer who is constantly made out by the media to be a bad person, but throughout it all she stands her ground and still claims that she isn’t all bad. Readers would of wanted to buy this issue to read about Miley and what she had to say. The image itself isn’t revealing as such, but does show a bit of her stomach, meaning she isn’t being portrayed in a sexual manner but does make her look attractive. The producers have done this in a bid to make Miley stand out and make people want to read about her and what she has to say about herself.

This article, from the Elle US April 2013 edition, is

about Zac Efron. As you can see the

page itself is pretty simple looking, this could be in a bid to help the audience just focus on the

writing rather than the page and the

way it looks.

The report is called ‘Blue Velvet’ as Zac’s eyes are blue and soft looking, like

velvet.

The article is very formally laid out, as if it was a newspaper report. As the

audience of Elle are mostly middle age, middle class, educated women, they will

be used to reading most properly laid out set ups.

The only hint of colour on the page is Zac himself and he is only wearing minimal

colored clothing i.e. navy. This makes the page again, simple yet very effective.

Layout

The magazine has captions.

ColourThe colour scheme of Elle is usually very similar, by no means the same but alike. One of the most common colour schemes you see running through the issues is the black and red on white scheme. Each edition tends to stick to a three way colour group, most of these include black and white. The fact that the three way colour scheme is used makes the cover page look very simple yet very effective. It doesn’t make the page look to complex and detailed but still fills the page. For example, as you can see to the left these two issues, the US August 2012 edition featuring Katie Holmes and the Croatian 2010 December edition with Nika Senjak. Katie Holmes (top) is wearing all white and black and is against a white background, this contrasts really well with the bright red and bold writing. The producers have clearly picked what is considered the most important features of the front cover and made them stand out, drawing the audience in. The colour red is a common factor throughout Elle issues and is used often on the cover, a reason is that used it is an accent colour so it stimulates people to make quick decisions. The font used in a magazine is a vital aspect especially when its used on the cover as this is people first impression and can effectively make or break a design. No matter what the content is, if the typography is bad, then people will not want to read the article and it will cause the reader to become distracted by the aesthetic. A key thing to consider when choosing the font for the product is the spacing and shape of the writing, for example using serifs. Serifs make it easier to read as the letters almost join up and make it easy on the eye.

FontThe font used in a magazine is a vital aspect especially when its used on the cover as this is people first impression and can effectively make or break a design. No matter what the content is, if the typography is bad, then people will not want to read the article and it will cause the reader to become distracted by the aesthetic. A key thing to consider when choosing the font for the product is the spacing and shape of the writing, for example using serifs. Serifs make it easier to read as the letters almost join up and make it easy on the eye.