Codes and conventions of Cosmo

1. C and C production
Hearst examples

3. cosmopolitan

4. About cosmo
Cosmopolitan magazine has a very broad audience of females,it is a magazine aimed at women and used as an escape
route from their day to day lives. Cosmopolitan offersa chatty,friendlyvibe for all women across all ages covering lotsof
differentstories,tips etc. It has a very large audience with an age gap of 18-40.
Cosmopolitan an informal and chatty magazine; this is mainlyshown through there texteg “wow” and “feel great naked”
are not only informal but also personal.Body image is one of those topicswhich is quite touchyand a personal issue as a
lot of women have body confidence issues.
Cosmopolitan don’t tend to incorporate a lot of images on one page. They use a celebrityon the front cover,Khloe
Kardashian has been used as she is known for her body confidence issuesand overcoming her fearson this.
The coloursenhance the target audience to be femalesas they choose bright,vibrant, stereotypicallyfemale colours.For
example the Khloe Kardashian cover consistspredominantlyof pink and black.The pink is the main indicator of the target
audience,as stereotypicallywomen.
Codesand conventionsrelated to colour,setting and bodylanguage. The generic codesand conventionsfor a magazine
like Cosmopolitan would be to have light coloursas cosmopolitan have a very female audience therefore light ‘girly’
colourswould attract them.

5. Issue 1 and 2

6. Use of camera and photography
in magazines
In most of the cosmopolitan magazines which are lifestyle are to do with health, mental health, physical health etc and they feature a model,
some celebrity's, who are at the centre of the magazine, the camera angle ranges in every magazine cover to depict different things there
are close ups mid shots headshots and more in cosmopolitan issues 1 and 2 the angle is mid but it is so that the model looks right at the
camera so when you look at the magazine you are looking at them on the same level, one of the covers talks about diet which is to do with
health even though the front cover is of a glamourous woman with a red dress on it doesn’t exactly advertise health.
Example: conventions of a 16-24 year old target audience typically lifestyle magazines don’t appeal to this age group but cosmopolitan do
mental health along with including well known celebs to model
Cosmopolitan magazine age group is 18-34, similarily mine will be 16-24 but their magazine appeals to me and I am 17, I want mine to be
inspired by cosmopiltan only because of the way they present the magazine, the text, coloul, models, they appeal to me and I can get my
magazine to appeal to my age group to 24 with some tweaks.

7. Mise en scene, costumes makeup props used
in photography
The models have costumesusually what is in fashion or just a very glam outfit that
pops or grabs your attention,the magazine front cover normally has a theme and the
outfit hair and makeup all complete a look, for the photos probs are used like, a chair
in issue 2 a red shaped chair is used
Example: conventions

8. Props
Puppy
Costume
pink dress
Silver jewelery
Makeup and hair
Short blond styled
curled and side part
pink lipgloss black
eyeliner glowy look
Colour theme pink and
white
Typography
Font: lots of different
styles of font
Sexy fashion is fancy
font and it is black text
which makes it stand out
all the other font
matches what it says

9. Editing of the magazines
Photos of the models go through editing,
whether its special affects backgroundsor
photoshop, editing makeup or airbrushingto
smooth the face just depends on the
magazine, the editing Is an important bit of
the magazine adding the text and typography
adding the barcode and just making it look
professional.

10. conventions The main image is located centrally on the magazine cover, down
the centre of the page. It is conventionally a person, and most often a
well-known celebrity that will entice the fans of the celebrity to read
the magazine
direct eye contact with the camera and therefore the audience.
Often on mainstream women lifestyle magazine has seductive body
language, such as their hands in their hair, or with their hand holding
their opposite elbow
The cover stories are located surrounding the main image and are
based on feature articles inside the magazine cover such as hair,
beauty and fashion segments, which link to the genre of the
magazine.
Alike to the headline the cover stories conventionally include
different typography and fonts as well as text size, within each of the
cover stories to emphasise the key terms in the story, drawing the
reader to the general topics that may be discussed in the issue.
seasonal colours on the house style, e.g. blues and yellows on
summer copies and orange, black and red around autumn. Also it is
conventional for women’s lifestyle magazines to have pink tones on
the cover, to establish stereotypically the female target audience.

11. Lighting, setting and special effects in
the magazine
The director of the photoshoot or the magazine designer chooses the lightingfor
what affect they are going for so dark light they have different moods which effect the
look and therefore audience of the magazine, special effects are added with editing
and change the magazine look its important to create the magazine and make it so all
of these things target the target audience so my target audience is 16-24 if the
magazine doesn’t appeal to this audience then the codes are for a different target
audience.
Example: conventions

12. Airbrush editing
Background edited

13. Typography and text
Typography - The masthead on the cover is conventionallylocated at the top of
the magazine cover. It is also often in a women’s mainstream lifestyle magazines to
have a bold masthead that is larger than any other,which can be in an either serif
or san serif font.

14. Cover stories
surrounding
main image of
sydney, in
different sizes
and colours
mainly the same
font
Masthead
in large
bold
san serif
font
Celeb model with pink/red
themed makup posed with
arms up
Slightly revealing colourful outfit
which magazine is themed
around
barcode

15. Visual composition and colour
The put together of everything I have talked about is also important,every part of the
process puts towards the final outcome of the magazine if it is put together wrong
then even if the other parts of the magazine like mise en scene are good it doesn’t
matter because the visual composition isnt good, then the magazine will not look
good,
for example colour,if the colour theme is too messy or doesn’t look good then the
magazine just wont look as good