IPC Media

IPC Media ( International Publishing Corporation) is the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisher,with more than 60 iconic media brands, IPC creates content for multiple platforms, across print, online, mobile, tablets and events. They engage with 26 million UK adults - almost two thirds of UK women and over 40% of UK men. Their award winning portfolio of websites reaches over 25 million global users every month.

IPC Media is made up of three publishing divisions; IPC Connect, IPC Inspire and IPC Southbank. Sitting alongside the publishing divisions is IPC Advertising, which allows clients and agencies to purchase specific advertisment opportunities, and IPC Marketforce which is the UK's leading newstrade sales and distribution company

IPC Connect

IPC Connect is IPC Media's mass market women's division with a range of brands that provide powerful reach. Connect's magazines are read by 9.4 million mass market women, which equates to 49% of all mass market women, while its digital brands reach over 5.3 million unique users and deliver 35 million page impressions every month. Connect's audience is highly valuable and responsive, responsible for the vast majority of UK purchasing decisions.

IPC Connect looks to provide its consumers with a wide variety of sectors, ranging from Celebrity and Fashion to real life and casual gaming 

IPC Inspire

IPC Inspire is IPC's men's division. Its portfolio of 38 brands covers a huge spectrum of interests and includes famous names from Country Life and The Field to Nuts and NME.

IPC Southbank

IPC Southbank is the upmarket women's division, focusing on the three key markets of Fashion, Women's Lifestyle and Home Interest.  Southbank is home to some of the most iconic magazine brands in publishing including Marie Claire, woman&home, Look and Ideal Home.

Southbank has a magazine for every interest in a woman's life, from the fashion conscious to the homeowner to the woman looking for lifestyle inspiration. Its titles offer unrivalled content and reach a readership base of over ten million.

 Being such a well known and praised company its almost a no brainer that IPC would be an appropriate publisher for a new music magazine.It deals with everything from mens magazines to womens and also runs the popular magazine NME, This means that it has backgroud understanding of the characteristics that a succesful music magazine should have. In terms of the genres/music types that it would be likely to publish, i think it would look to sell music which is currently very popular in order to be current and sell more. The more modern they are, the more relevant they will be and they're more likely to have a bigger audience. Specifically I would say pop music is very popular at the moment as big artists such a rihanna, katy perry and lady gaga all sing that genre of music.
An alternative publisher for a new music magazine could be Bauer. Bauer Media is a division of the Bauer Media Group, Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group. The Group is a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations. Bauer Media is a multi-platform UK-based media Group consisting of many companies collected around two main divisions – Magazines and Radio - widely recognised and rewarded as being industry innovators.Bauer has a lot of experience within the music industry as it currently runs 7 music based television channels which are very successful. Because of this, it is more likely that they would have a better understanding of what it takes to run a music magazine.

Magazines & Audiences

Adele on the Cover of Vogue US March issue 

Vogue magazine is an american monthly magazine which is published in 19 countries across the globe.Having been described as " the worlds best fashion magazine" by book critic Caroline Weber in 'The New York Time', Vogue proves its self to be a massive influence not only in the fashion industry but in  celebrity culture and with the rest of  us regular people in society being celebrity obsessed and body conscious its no wonder why Vogue is at the forefront of the fashion readers circle.As it always features female celebrities on its cover,  I believe that Vogue's target audience is a young female reader anyone from their late teens to the late 40's its definitely someone who is interested in fashion and even though they might no necessarily be able to afford the products featured they will still purchase the magazine because of the A list celebrities that they feature on their cover and the facts are there to prove it the march issue with Adele on the cover sold a mammoth 410.000 copies.

For this particular magazine,the colors used are very powerful as all the elements of it are used to make Adele look more striking  and glamorous.The sharp pop of red used for the masthead really draws you attention to the cover as it is a strong contrast to the slate grey used for the background  I believe the red hear was used to  create a sense of sultriness and romance which is a refreshing idea as we don't usually see Adele in being a sultry sex symbol but on this cover the contrast really works.Moreover the red could also symbolize anger ,passion or fire which could be a little nod or subtle link to her album as the album was released a few weeks after the March issue was published I could see why the red was a good color to use as the album have very fiery and passionate songs like ' Someone like you' or 'Rolling in the Deep'.I believe in this issue they were trying to show a different side to Adele as a lot of her song aren't always happy or overtly sexual they played with that idea to with big voluminous hair , air brushed face and the photo shopped cheeks and waist they were trying to take Adele out of her predictable look and gave her a sultry and glamorous look.

I find the positioning of the main coverline very cleverly done as the first thing you look at on the cover is her and then as the main coverline is aligned just to the right of her face its almost hard for you to not read that straight after and with the text being in white it stands out more infront of the her and the grey background which makes it easier and clearer for people to read.What I love about the cover is that they tried to keep the text as pure and minimal as possible as there is a lot going on in the picture and they wanted it to be all about her using words like 'exclusive!' right above the cover line making you feel like you are reading information that might be something we never knew about her already.The left third is also a lot of white writing with pop of red to match the Masthead for the 'spring looks' which ties the whole cover together making it more cohesive.Another thing I found interesting with the cover is the fact that the words 'Power' and 'Adele' are in capital letters aligned in a line and the color red often used to symbolize aggression and power which was the color that was chosen for the masthead I like how they paid attention to detail in a subtle man through the use of color and font to keep the page minimal, easy to read and fresh

Magazine Terminologies and Definitions

Magazine Terminology 

Text - Any form of media or a media product

Niche- A specific market in which the product is focuses in, the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific needs for example gossip magazines vs music magazines

Code and Convention- a set off rules that form a convention as to what is going to appear in the magazine or the media  

Semiotics- the reading and understanding of signs

Masthead - The main title of the magazine, It is always on the front cover

Puff - an incentive which is place on the cover to make something stand out and intice the audience . Usually by putting text around a shape

Features -  Things the readers will find inside the magazine.
Main coverline - the feature story , double page spread usually font size is bigger than others 

The Main Image - Is the image in the center of the front page, the picture is usually of a person who will probably have an exclusive interview and a couple of pictures inside the magazine. The main image is the product which sells the magazine.

Headline - The headline is the main piece of text on the cover of the magazine. The headline will promote the main image on the cover.


Barcode - A code and convention - a barcode is on every cover of every magazine it tells us the price and overall quality of the magazine. A barcode helps the customers understand that this item needs to be paid for. It can also tell the reader which company distributes the magazine.

Left Third - the most visible part of the magazine when they are stacked on stand usually most eye catching and interesting .

Task 1 :Getting to know Blogger

Things I could do with blogger 

• Film reviews
• Music reviews and commentaries 
• Research
• Articles 
• Lifestyle issues
• Interviews                 

How Blogger will be useful for my coursework

• It will help with keeping my coursework up to date
• All my work will be in one place 
• It with help with if I ever need to use my previous work for research or for referencing