Open Studio / Branding Workshop
Open Studio / Branding Workshop
My group made the decision to come in early to sort out aspects of our magazine we really wanted to explore further as we had a good opportunity to just come in together and discuss ideas; what works and what might not, potential shoots and small ideas to delve into. This was extremely useful in planning new shoots and ideas as we were all really excited to work together on this magazine, the energy and passion of my group really helped me to push myself further too. We discussed locations that relate to our brand which would make for an effective photography location; kebab shops, off licence shops, council estates, bingo places, pubs and basement raves as well as football games came to mind. All perfect for our theme of focusing in on the British working class within Brighton as these are everyday locations that we can transform for our magazine to really highlight the speciality and novelty of how these places mean something different for each person specifically.
This discussion really made us think and refine the specific details we need to consider our audience and why they want to read the magazine, what they want to get out of reading it as well as to think about the types of content they would personally find engaging and why, further from pictures and texts. I feel like we really focused more on our customer further than their age that reflect the sort of things they want in a magazine; we nailed down their locations, shopping habits, clothing brands, political opinions, lifestyle, degree, occupation etc which all reflect their style of magazine they look for. As well as this, I was happy with our meeting as we really progressed slightly further as we planned interview questions for the written content of our essay that I didn’t want to neglect or leave entirely for our copywriter as it should be a group effort to help each other out.
Going from analysing different successful fashion and lifestyle magazines which all have a very cohesive and distinctive aesthetic which are on the current market helped show how each magazine can be very successful yet so different. Such as Aesthetica Magazine; known for its clean cut, sophisticated and enlightened approach to displaying fashion and cultured through its natural and neutral colour palette, newspaper style front cover and not overly styled imagery as well as Luncheon Magazine with its slightly more enthusiastic film cover style imagery which is therefore more conceptual and story like; both with a very different yet clear approach to fashion and lifestyle.
When asked to go across our groups and choose three words to describe our magazine we said these words; raw, gritty, kitsch, social, inclusive, alternative, vintage, independent, political, honest, exciting, natural, informative, bold. We need to keep these words in mind when we practise shoots so we don’t collectively lose the essence of the brand and so we all stay on the same page. The words we narrowed down our magazine to were: raw, gritty and kitsch; meaning that we want to tell real stories, not overly styled imagery with actual interviews of people’s lives while maintaining a fun and light-hearted, slightly kitsch and funny aspect of our theme with fish and chip shop adverts and beer cans designs etc.
Understanding of branding and brand identity; as a whole we definitely refined the brand identity for our magazine as we had a think about it individually and then discussed and refined it a as group; making all of us on the same page which is so essential in creating a magazine as a group effort.
