2. Dazed Magazine
‘Dazed’ magazine, previously known as
‘Dazed and confused magazine is a bi-
monthly British style, London based
magazine. It was founded in 1991 by
Hack and Rankin Waddell. It covers
topics like music, fashion, film, art and
literature. Dazed is published and
independent media group, Dazed Media,
producing stories across its print, digital
and video brands
Here is the ‘Dazed’ Magazine cover I will
be analysing for my research. I chose to
analyse Dazed because I personally like
the aesthetic of the magazine and want
to incorporate elements of this in my
product.
3. Layout
The layout of this magazine follows most codes
and conventions of a fashion magazine – it has a
prominent masthead, with the date of issue
printed smaller underneath. This masthead is the
same through each magazine, which anchors the
house style of the magazine and creates a strong,
iconic brand identity for Dazed Media.
It also features one celebrity in the centre of the
magazine, Bill Skarsgard, which is endorsement of
fans and very effective in terms of engaging the
audience, and broadening the audience to fans of
Bill Skarsgard.
4. Typography
In terms of typography, Dazed follows codes
and conventions of a magazine by keeping the
same font for their masthead in every issue.
They also include different typography in the
cover lines, which compliment the masthead –
another convention I have found to be
common in my research.
However, this issue goes against codes and
conventions regarding layout as it has only
one cover line “Bill Skasgard – Don’t Look
Now”. This is unusual for a magazine as there
is little cover lines to engage the reader,
however this minimalistic approach is part of
Dazed’s brand identity and has become quite
iconic to them as a brand.
5. Language
This issue adheres to codes and conventions by
having one model, central, and making eye
contact with the camera. This direct mode of
address is quite effective as it engages the
audience on a personal level, which is going to
make them more likely to purchase the product,
especially the fans of Skarsgard.
Skarsgard also holds a moody expression, angry
almost. Although this is somewhat uncommon
for endorsement – it fits his aesthetic as a
celebrity, especially after being cast to play a
killer clown in ‘It’. This will adhere to
Skarsgard’s brand identity and engage the
consumer on a stronger level.
6. Images
In terms of images, Dazed uses a bright and
bold colour palette, that although has many
contrasting colours, fits really well and gives a
strong, pleasing aesthetic to this issue. This is
also part of Dazed’s brand identity, to use bold
colours, therefore this issue anchors the house
style of the magazine. Speaking aesthetically,
the bold colours are also quite eye-catching
and will help engage the audience in terms of
standing out against the other magazines.
The use of monster-like hands as props also is
unusual for a fashion magazine, however fits in
really well with Skarsgard’s brand identity,
having recently been cast as the lead in a
horror film. He is known for being attractive in
a haunting way – and the claws anchor this as
they connote the presence supernatural
beings.
7. Dazed and Confused Online
This is a screenshot of the website of Dazed Magazine.
I will be analysing the website as a whole and would like to include some
elements of this website in my digital one
8. Layout
The layout of this magazine
website adheres to most
codes and conventions of an
online magazine.
It features a main article
about Jaden Smith, using his
picture to endorse fans.
To the side of this, there are smaller images with linked articles to other news
stories that feature less popular personnel like ‘activists’. The subheadings to these
are to-the-point and easy to digest, so the audience can easily be entices by them.
There is also an advert to a ‘Beats’ speaker – which would link with the music
element of Dazed, and engage that side of the audience.
Below this there are more articles to do with Art and Lifestyle – another feature in
Dazed’s brand identity
In terms of layout, website is simplistic and easy to digest – which is common for a
fashion magazine, and effective in the sense that audiences can be easily engaged,
and not overloaded with content.
9. Navigation
In the top left there is a
menu bar for the
magazine, which when
clicked on gives more links
to other subcategories of
the magazine. This is really
effective in terms of
engagement because it allows the audience to select
the category that relates to them, but also allows
them to discover other categories that interest them.
This also emphasizes the brand identity because it
anchors what the brand is about, and also links to
different outlets that the audience will be interested
in, like ‘Dazed 100’.
In terms of codes and conventions, it is unusual for a
fashion magazine to have a ‘politics’ category,
however this gives Dazed a USP and also broadens the
reach of their audience by including more categories.
10. Language
As with the front cover,
Jaden Smith is using a
direct mode of address to
personally engage the
audience, which makes
them more likely to
endorse him.
The language of the subheadings and captions is
simplistic and to-the-point. This follows codes
and conventions of a website as it allows the
audience to easily digest the articles.
It also includes a lot of platforms for the
audience, such as a subscribe option, and links
to the brand’s social media. This strengthens the
brand identity because it allows audiences to
reach the brand on many different media
platforms. In my research I have found that most
magazine websites follow this convention.
11. Use of images/audio/text/video
Dazed website uses images
to entice the audience into
reading the articles. In this
example it is of a celebrity
(Jaden Smith) and iconic
images (Banksy) and
somewhat shocking images
(model with no eyebrows).
These images are not typical
fashion statements, which relates to
the brand identity of Dazed being an
artsy, indie magazine that focuses on
more that just fashion. This would
engage the target audience because
they would be more politically and
culturally sophisticated. They give a
sense of deeper meaning to the
brand.
12. My Response
Researching this magazine, I have found elements I wish to include in my
product, and some I would wish to disregard.
I found the bold, statement images for the front cover very effective and would
like to include this in my product.
I also like the minimalism of the cover lines and the simplicity of the website.
I like the artsy, more cultural side of the content, however I won’t include a
‘politics’ subcategory because I would like the focus of my magazine to be more
on fashion and art and celebrities rather than more controversial topics as I feel
this would strengthen the popularity of my brand.
