Writing a story based on editorial photographs whilst including the interview responses, personal opinions etc. is an art of its own. In order to properly understand how to write such articles, I read up and analysed a few articles published on Vogue Website. 

1. “Daydreaming” - Elliot and Erick Jimenez for Gucci Beauty

   [Annotated Feature article on Daydreaming.]

2. “Whispering” - Bodhi Shola for Xiaomi

   [Annotated Feature article on Whispering.]

Analysis:

What I noticed collectively in both of these articles were that they are the results of the artist’s own interpretations of the selected topic. And through these unique and creative portraits they have conveyed a really powerful message to their audience. In addition each of these shoots have a particular title and can be summarised in a few key words. Although the articles are short and concise they are very influential. That is because the major part of the story is conveyed through the editorial photographs itself. They have also given all the artists involved in creating the art (Hair and makeup, costume etc.) appropriate credits as well. 

Learning outcome:

This analysis gave me an understanding on how I should write my own editorial article so that it conveys the message I am trying to represent in the photos without diminishing the visual elements.

As the purpose of my shoot was to convey a niche, fantasy story to the local audience, I focused on some key points when choosing the models. 

Key points focused:

• Models should convey the personality and looks of the characters in the story.

• Models should resonate with the audience and did not have to fit the traditional standards of what a model should look like.

• Sri Lankan people within the target age group of 16-25 to show what the magazine represents. 

• They should be of different skin tones and from different cultural backgrounds to fully embrace the local community.

With that I decided to have 3 female models and 1 male model.  

I found it fairly easy to find all 3 of the female models who fit the character description amongst my classmates itself. However after agreeing and proceeding to a certain extent with the planning one of the models backed out as she was having issues with her transport. Hence I had to quickly find someone else and conveniently another one of my friends agreed to do the shoot taking her place. 

[Message I received from the Model who was unable to continue.]

Getting a male model was relatively hard as I couldn’t find anyone who did the character justice. A couple of my friends helped out by putting Instagram stories and tried to find someone through that. They even asked around from their friends if they were willing to do an editorial shoot free of charge. Although we did get a few responses I was not able to find the right fit. 

Eventually a mutual friend of mine agreed to do the shoot and conveniently he also fit the character description. 

I was finally able to get a cast that satisfied all of my key requirements. These are the finalised set of models who would be doing the editorial shoot with me. 

Finalised Cast (models)

Sachin Perera as Cassian

Character description: Cassian is tall with black hair, golden-brown skin and hazel eyes. His features are described as being rough-hewn, as though they’d been made of wind, earth and flame. His body is powerful and muscled. Beneath his roughness and warrior-like nature, he is genuine, playful, perceptive and loyal to a fault. 

[Photo taken by Dhamsarani.]

Dhamsarani Kuruppu as Nesta Archeron

Character description: Nesta is described as being devastatingly beautiful with sharp eyes. She has defined features and a thinner build than both of her sisters. She has impeccable posture and stands very tall. She wears a impenetrable façade over her emotions, stoic, poised, regal and does not need to resort to violence to be intimidating. 

Sowmieya Thiagarajan as Elain Archeron

Character description: Elain has rich brown eyes and her skin is sun-kissed from the time spent in her garden. She is described as the most beautiful of the 3 sisters. She is gentle, kind and arguably the softest of the sisters. 

[Photo taken by Abhishri.]

Abhishri Shankar as Feyre Archeron

Character description: Feyre has a pert, pretty and straight nose, sharp cheekbones and a tanned and freckled skin. She is the high lady  of the night court and is driven forward by her compassion, determination and self sacrificing nature. She is also a keen artist. 

Mood boards are intended to refine one’s ideas and communicate it to others. Mood boards can either be done physically using foam papers and cardboards or digitally on softwares like Canva, Milanote or even Photoshop. I decided to do a digital mood board as it is convenient and more efficient as my project is online-based. 

I started building the aesthetic for my magazine by creating my own colour palette, as I could not find what I wanted on the Adobe colour website. I downloaded an image that inspired me from Pinterest and extracted the colours in it, using the eyedropper tool on Adobe Illustrator.

I had already made a Pinterest board with my early sources of inspiration when I initially got this idea. This Pinterest board included fan arts, fashion editorial shoots, vintage illustrations, architecture, objects, movie mise-en-scene and even clothings that I found inspiring. From what I'd read on How to Make a Moodboard: Step-by-Step Guide it was important to focus on the typography I'll be using on the mood board as well.

[Screenshot of my Pinterest Board with Inspirations.]

Thus, I proceeded to pick some fonts from https://www.fontspace.com/ that inspired me and I tried it out on Illustrator to see how they turned out. I wanted to include vintage font faces on the mood board as I wanted the typography to connote the timeline of the story.

[Trying out fonts on Illustrator.]

Now that I had all my elements for the mood board I moved on to reviewing, curating and presenting it on my board. I used the Milanote online site to make my mood board, as it had more nuanced templates and creative tools compared to Photoshop. I paid more attention to choosing elements that come together harmoniously, yet stick to the colour scheme and reflect the aesthetic of the series. As a cohesive colour palette was of utmost importance, I disregarded all the elements that clashed with it.

[All images used were taken from Pinterest. Texts are quotations from the 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' book series.]

With that I was able to develop my final mood board that would be guiding me throughout my future creative decisions and gives me clarity before starting to buy the materials for the production.

A magazine house style is a basic convention that a magazine follows in matters of detail, throughout the productions in order to maintain consistency. It is to do with language, grammar, spelling (American or British), abbreviation (S.L.F.P or SLFP), fonts, colours, picture proportions/placements etc. Generally these house styles are unique to each magazine publication. 

I chose to analyse the Elle magazines’ house style. 

  

 

[Examples of Elle magazine covers]

The masthead used by Elle magazine is always in the same font and size positioned at the top of the magazine page, making it pop out to the consumers when in a shelf with many other magazines. The cover image is placed either behind the masthead or in some cases superimposed over the text giving it a very nice look. The masthead appears in different colours depending on the cover image. But mostly white colour has been used and they use the Serif font, Didot for the title. 

[Annotated magazine covers. Source: Google. Annotations: myself.]

What I noticed in the covers is that the background is mostly very minimalist either being gradient or a solid colour highlighting the cover image and making it stand out to the consumers. 

[Elle magazine cover with gradient background. Source: Google]

The cover image is always placed in the centre and tends to be a medium shot or a close up. It is rare for more than one person to be featured in the cover image. 

[Elle magazine cover with Medium shot of Zayn Malik. Source: Google]

[Elle magazine cover with Close up shot of Rihanna. Source: Google]

The cover lines on the magazine use fonts that are a mix of bold, thin and rounded Serif and San Serif fonts. The cover lines generally tend to be of one particular colour (i.e. white) but in certain cases they’ve used colour font to highlight the key words. Another thing I noticed on the cover is that they place their issue number and country name around the masthead either directly above or below it in small font size and different alignments. The barcode isn’t always present on the magazine cover. The spelling and grammar used in the magazine differs based on the country it is published in (Ex: American edition uses American spelling and UK edition uses British spelling.)

[Annotated magazine covers. Source: Google. Annotations: myself.]

This research helped me to get an understanding on the conventions that I have to follow when creating a magazine of my own. Prior to the research I assumed these elements were very trivial and didn’t require much thought. However this research showed the importance of each of the small aspects that I thought to be irrelevant. This analysis assisted me in deciding the house style for my product as well.