Friday, 4 November 2011
Main Task: Case Study Of a Publishing house
Publishing House Case study
My chosen publishing house is called Curtis. Curtis has been running now since 1876. They first started in Philadelphia after successfully publishing “The people’s lodge2 for six years in Boston. Curtis founded the Tribune and farmer.
After becoming very successful in editorial direction of his wife Louis Knapp Curtis, in 1883 it expanded to Ladies home journal.
In 1890, Cyrus Curtis formed the Curtis Publishing Company and in 1897, purchased The Saturday Evening Post for $1,000.
In 1911, Curtis acquired Country Gentleman, which also became a profitable addition. Jack and Jill for Children and Holiday were launched in 1938 and 1946, respectively. These five publications formed the nucleus of one of the most influential and profitable publishing ventures of the early twentieth century.
The Curtis Publishing Company circulation department became a separate subsidiary company, Curtis Circulation Company, in October 1946. Curtis Circulation Company continues to be an organisation whose expertise is still widely recognised today and whose market share has grown from 6% in 1982 to over 33% today.
The company “Curtis” publishes more than one big branded magazine. These include:
· The Saturday Evening Post
· Country Gentleman
· Jack and Jill for Children
· Holiday
The magazines that Curtis produces and sells are aimed around the age range of 25+. The magazines they produce are not really about gossip that most magazines do. The ones they produce are mainly about politics and usual things like how to cook or generally about something that will benefit you from reading it. The magazines are very intellectual and to must have a pretty good reading level to understand most of them.
Which each magazine Curtis makes they always switch it around. Sometimes they will focus on their male magazines and put themselves far out to make them the main attraction of Curtis. For instance one magazine they publish is called “country gentlemen” clearly by the name alone we know that this magazine is aimed at males only. But another way Curtis is so successful is because they produce magazines for both sexes. Also they produce magazines and books for young children; this will defiantly pull in more money due to the good standard of the books/magazines.
Looking at their website they seem to be happy and most of all successful enough and don’t seem to have plans to do anything more then what they’re doing.
Here are some examples of the magazines they have made:
After becoming very successful in editorial direction of his wife Louis Knapp Curtis, in 1883 it expanded to Ladies home journal.
In 1890, Cyrus Curtis formed the Curtis Publishing Company and in 1897, purchased The Saturday Evening Post for $1,000.
In 1911, Curtis acquired Country Gentleman, which also became a profitable addition. Jack and Jill for Children and Holiday were launched in 1938 and 1946, respectively. These five publications formed the nucleus of one of the most influential and profitable publishing ventures of the early twentieth century.
The Curtis Publishing Company circulation department became a separate subsidiary company, Curtis Circulation Company, in October 1946. Curtis Circulation Company continues to be an organisation whose expertise is still widely recognised today and whose market share has grown from 6% in 1982 to over 33% today.
The company “Curtis” publishes more than one big branded magazine. These include:
· The Saturday Evening Post
· Country Gentleman
· Jack and Jill for Children
· Holiday
The magazines that Curtis produces and sells are aimed around the age range of 25+. The magazines they produce are not really about gossip that most magazines do. The ones they produce are mainly about politics and usual things like how to cook or generally about something that will benefit you from reading it. The magazines are very intellectual and to must have a pretty good reading level to understand most of them.
Which each magazine Curtis makes they always switch it around. Sometimes they will focus on their male magazines and put themselves far out to make them the main attraction of Curtis. For instance one magazine they publish is called “country gentlemen” clearly by the name alone we know that this magazine is aimed at males only. But another way Curtis is so successful is because they produce magazines for both sexes. Also they produce magazines and books for young children; this will defiantly pull in more money due to the good standard of the books/magazines.
Looking at their website they seem to be happy and most of all successful enough and don’t seem to have plans to do anything more then what they’re doing.
Here are some examples of the magazines they have made:
Main Task: Double Page Spread Texual Analysis
Denotation
Image looks interesting. We see a man sitting on a bench in front of a studio or somewhere. The layout of the double page looks neat.
Connotation
The image we see will pull us in and make us think why is a superstar that big in somewhere like where he is? From what we see the place he’s in looks very ghetto and run-down. However the layout of this double page looks very neat and tidy for starters. It looks easy to read and from what we can see it looks like the text is about the man (the game) sitting down.
The prop here is the setting. A big star like The game sitting on a dirty bench like that and with a nasty looking building is not what you usually see. The meaning behind this suggest that he is visiting a place where he grew up because he always talks about how life was hard for him as a youngster and how the gang life affects his music that could be the case.
The lighting is definatly foccussed around his face, cleverly though the way he is wearing his hat covers his face from the light and keeps his face dark. This suggests he's hiding emotions or could even be scared to show his face around this area.
His non-verbal communucation is very strong, with the look on his face it may suggests he's not happy at all being around where he is or maybe he could actually be upset.
Mise En Scene
Props – there aren’t any props in this. There is a bench which he’s on but that’s already there and it part of the scenery already.
Lighting – As for lighting he doesn’t really seem to be in the main light of the picture. To me the main light is on the background, I believe its like this to emprasize the surroundings he’s got around him.
Setting – From what we can see he isn’t in the richest place. To the audience it looks like he is in a ghetto place. We can tell this because in the background there’s a building with a lot of graffiti over it. Also he’s sitting in what seems to be a lot of dirt around him, you don’t usually see rich people in places like that.
Non-Verbal Communication (NVC) – His NVC is very powerful in this image. Without knowing what he’s story is about we can tell that he isn’t in the mood for anyone’s crap. He looks quite fed-up and angry. From the way he’s sitting we can tell he’s not posh but quite the opposite.
Costume – From what he’s wearing we can tell that he is from a ghetto area. He wears the style of what many rappers/Mc’s wear. If he was in a suite we could maybe think he’s showing of he’s money or is going somewhere important but clearly he’s not.
Anchorage
Double pages don’t really have anchorage lines because there usually just for the front cover.
Masthead
Double page spreads don’t have mastheads.
Date
Once again DPS don’t have dates on, there usually on the front cover.
Barcode
Barcode’s are always on the front cover or on the back.
Main Task: Front Cover Texual Analysis
Denotation
From the image alone we can clearly see she’s not wearing a lot. She’s clearly been soaked. She’s standing against a white background.
Connotation
She’s obviously not wearing a lot which will attract mainly the male sex and even possibly women as well. When you take a first look you think wow and make you want to know why she’s half naked and wet. She also has a very seductive look which seems like she’s looking right at you.
The props on this magazine front cover are only her clothes.
She is wearing these sorts of clothes because they fit the whole sexy look, for
instance if she was wearing jeans and a jumper but was still wet it wouldn’t be
as effective as what she is wearing now.
The key lighting is around her chest area and by her bum.
This is clearly to catch the eye of the audience so they look there. Clearly
with the whole sexy look, these are the keys areas off where people are going
to be looking anyway so they even hint at us the audience to look.
Her non-verbal communication once again is a very seductive
look and looks like she wants who ever is watching her to come to her. This is
another very smart way the producers have blended her in with the whole sexy
theme. If she was just standing there looking at the wall it wouldn’t be as
effective as it could be but that look will defiantly attract and audience.
Mise en scene
· Props - there aren’t really any props in this at all apart from the wall behind her.
· Lighting – The main light of the picture is on her body and her face, this shows that the producers of the magazine cover clearly want you to be look at her and it makes her seem the main attraction of the front cover which she is meant to be.
· Setting – From what we can see, we don’t really know where she is but from looking at the way she’s wet and dressed plus the wall in the background it kind of looks like tiles that you would find in a shower.
· Non-verbal communication – Her NVC is very strong on this front cover, just alone from her posture we can tell she’s being a bit “saucy”. Another thing that backs that theory up is her look on her face. She clearly is looking at the audience in a very seductive way, without there being any words it’s almost like she’s saying she wants who ever is viewing the cover.
· Costume – Her costume is very explicit. She is wearing very very short shorts that are clearly made to reveal her legs. Also the shirt she is wearing is designed to reveal a women’s breasts plus the fact its wet which sticks to her to make her breasts look better.
Anchorage
The anchorage line on this front cover is defiantly “Beyonce strips down”. This is basically the main line on the front cover that links with the main image. Clearly in the image she is stripped down and has been wetted, we can use this line to get us a slight insight why she is exposed.
Masthead
The masthead on the cover is very attracting. It’s big! And also its red. The red sticks out from the white background and it is very eye grabbing.
Date
The date isn’t very important at all but it does have to be on there. It’s on the barcode box and is very small but like I said it doesn’t tell readers anything about the cover itself so there’s no need for it to take up space over the main image.
Barcode
The barcode is an essential to any magazine, it doesn’t matter how big or small the magazine brand is, if it’s a selling magazine it has to have one on there. It’s been printed at the bottom right of the page. This is ok because there’s nothing there that it would cover anyway.
Main Task: Introduction
My name is Jordan Di-Giovanni. I am currently studying media at Christ the King 6th Form College. In my current and future lessons i shall be working on a music magazine front cover, contents page and a double page spread.
In order to get a high grade i need to keep my main images clear of everything on the page, i need to remember to make it unique and use my own ideas as long as there good enough and lastly i need to remmeber to keep all the writing on each page visible.
With my music magazine i want to keep it on the Hip-Hop/Rap theme, my reason for this is because i have always been intrested in this type of music and i have grown up on it.
In order to get a high grade i need to keep my main images clear of everything on the page, i need to remember to make it unique and use my own ideas as long as there good enough and lastly i need to remmeber to keep all the writing on each page visible.
With my music magazine i want to keep it on the Hip-Hop/Rap theme, my reason for this is because i have always been intrested in this type of music and i have grown up on it.
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