Elle magazine's target audience is primarily women ages 18 and older. The average reader is 36 years old, earns $76,052 annually, and is employed. Elle advertises products targeted towards women or unisex items but rarely targets men exclusively. The magazine uses a consistent color scheme of black, red, and white on covers but varies other design elements between issues to attract different readers based on cover stars and topics. Layouts are formal like a newspaper to appeal to the educated, middle-aged, middle-class female readership.

1. Appealing to an Audience
Robyn Collinson

3. Elle’s target audience are women over 18, with 5,088,000 readers out of the total
amount, 5,644,000, being female with a median age of 36. The magazine also produces a digital
edition available on Apple products, which reaches 38,000 readers each month. The average
house hold income for Elle readers is $76,052/£46,367. 67.8% of readers are employed and
43.2% of those are single. Typically, Elle advertises products/brands targeted at either women
or products that are unisex and very rarely advertise things solemnly towards the male
audience.

4. Images
Every Elle magazine is different, meaning
that they don’t stick to the same color
scheme. For example, this one with Miley
Cyrus as the cover star has blatantly stuck
to a black on white theme, with the only
splash of colour of the cover, being the
word ‘Fashion’. This particular edition
would of attracted audience to buy this
issue because of Miley Cyrus being the
cover star. Miley is a popular singer who is
constantly made out by the media to be a
bad person, but throughout it all she stands
her ground and still claims that she isn’t all
bad. Readers would of wanted to buy this
issue to read about Miley and what she had
to say. The image itself isn’t revealing as
such, but does show a bit of her stomach,
meaning she isn’t being portrayed in a
sexual manner but does make her look
attractive. The producers have done this in
a bid to make Miley stand out and make
people want to read about her and what
she has to say about herself.

5. Layout
This article, from
the Elle US April
2013 edition, is
about Zac Efron. As
you can see the
page itself is pretty
simple looking, this
could be in a bid to
help the audience
just focus on the
writing rather than
the page and the
way it looks.
The only hint of colour on the page is
Zac himself and he is only wearing
minimal colored clothing i.e. navy. This
makes the page again, simple yet very
effective.
The report is called ‘Blue Velvet’ as Zac’s
eyes are blue and soft looking, like
velvet.
The article is very formally laid out, as if
it was a newspaper report. As the
audience of Elle are mostly middle age,
middle class, educated women, they will
be used to reading most properly laid
out set ups.
The magazine has
captions.

6. Colour
The colour scheme of Elle is usually very similar, by no means the
same but alike. One of the most common colour schemes you see
running through the issues is the black and red on white scheme. Each
edition tends to stick to a three way colour group, most of these
include black and white. The fact that the three way colour scheme is
used makes the cover page look very simple yet very effective. It
doesn’t make the page look to complex and detailed but still fills the
page. For example, as you can see to the left these two issues, the US
August 2012 edition featuring Katie Holmes and the Croatian 2010
December edition with Nika Senjak. Katie Holmes (top) is wearing all
white and black and is against a white background, this contrasts really
well with the bright red and bold writing. The producers have clearly
picked what is considered the most important features of the front
cover and made them stand out, drawing the audience in. The colour
red is a common factor throughout Elle issues and is used often on the
cover, a reason is that used it is an accent colour so it stimulates
people to make quick decisions.
The font used in a magazine is a vital aspect especially when its used on
the cover as this is people first impression and can effectively make or
break a design. No matter what the content is, if the typography is bad,
then people will not want to read the article and it will cause the reader
to become distracted by the aesthetic. A key thing to consider when
choosing the font for the product is the spacing and shape of the
writing, for example using serifs. Serifs make it easier to read as the
letters almost join up and make it easy on the eye.

7. Font
The font used in a magazine is a vital aspect especially when its used on the cover as this is people
first impression and can effectively make or break a design. No matter what the content is, if the
typography is bad, then people will not want to read the article and it will cause the reader to
become distracted by the aesthetic. A key thing to consider when choosing the font for the
product is the spacing and shape of the writing, for example using serifs. Serifs make it easier to
read as the letters almost join up and make it easy on the eye.