Planning and Execution of a Project: Publishing a Printed Magazine for Women

Throughout history, magazines aimed at women have changed significantly for the better, been upgraded and refined, both in terms of content and visual presentation. The beginning of the first printed magazine for women, which was called The Ladies' Mercury, dates back to 1693 and, as expected, it has changed substantially over the years. Gradually, it began to cover a wide variety of topics that are of interest to women. Her task was to determine what her readers actually want to read, how she could attract their attention and at the same time maintain it. The magazine is a novelty, so it was necessary to create a product that attracts customers amongst the flood of all the others.

Problem

Throughout history, magazines aimed at women have changed significantly for the better, been upgraded and refined, both in terms of content and visual presentation. The beginning of the first printed magazine for women, which was called The Ladies' Mercury, dates back to 1693 and, as expected, it has changed substantially over the years. The content has changed, becoming increasingly in-depth.

Solution and Method

Gradually, it began to cover a wide variety of topics that are of interest to women. The scope of magazines has expanded, so from a single sheet of paper, a magazine of several dozen and several hundred pages has gradually emerged. For us, graphic designers, form and appearance are important.

Here we can create and have the opportunity to make content even more attractive. In the past, articles in magazines were only in black-and-white combination, so they had to convince with interesting headlines. For graphic design to be effective, in addition to the author's ingenuity, good organisation is also required.

Tactical and sensible planning of the entire production process is necessary. This will largely save them the time needed for production and improve our efficiency. The author in the diploma thesis focused on creating a prototype of her own printed magazine for women, on its execution and all the preliminary planning that is needed to arrive at the final product.

In the theoretical part, she delved into the magazine as a product itself – what it actually is, what its characteristics are and its history. When reviewing the historical part, she also presented facts related to the first magazine for women – where and when readers first encountered this type of magazine. In order to place her magazine in the right category, she had to research a large range of magazines aimed at women.

The research thus included both the Slovenian and foreign markets. In the research part, she researched or analysed already existing magazines on the market, how they are composed and designed, and what their content is.

Results

Her task was to determine what her readers actually want to read, how she could attract their attention and at the same time maintain it. The magazine is a novelty, so it was necessary to create a product that attracts customers amongst the flood of all the others. She defined her target group, with the help of which she received feedback on already existing magazines on the market and other useful information that came in handy for the author in her work.

For me, it was important confirmation that her new magazine would attract them. With the help of the data obtained and with well-created preliminary plans, in the practical part she created a draft of her own magazine La vie and finally also printed it.