Mind Map
A few things I knew I wanted from my magazine is it to be printed like my previous FMP magazine. I also wanted it to have a more professional design than my FMP magazine as I felt like it looked unprofessional (although its more appropriate for its younger target audience) and I wasn't all that proud of its design. I also wanted it to have about the same pages as my previous magazine because designing more wouldn't be possible with the limited amount of time I have. While I was making my FMP magazine though it felt difficult designing everything in only one page and no more though, so I want to give myself two or four extra pages so that I could make some double page spreads that link together with each other (examples below)
By combining what I enjoyed the most, I was able to have ideas about what I wanted my magazine to have. I knew I wanted it to have interviews like my previous magazine but it had to be about something different, so I chose other things I was interested in like music and fashion. I think interviewing musicians could work and it'd be a nice way to promote them, fashion could be a bit more difficult to find people willing to be interviewed for but I think it could also work
Another idea I have is a magazine celebrating black women. There will be a few articles but it'll mainly be interviews with other people, I'm unsure what the ratio on that will be. I'm not sure if it'll be general yet (going with any industry) or a specific one like focusing on media, but I know I definitely want to have a section in it focused on hairstyling. The target audience would be young adults, possibly teenagers, and black women specifically as thats what this will be about. I'll likely make it about locals rather than black women as a whole. The main reason I want to make this is because I'm one myself, but I also think it'd be an interesting way to meet new people who are like me. I'd need to do research into what my articles should be about specifically though, while I want to include more serious topics in it like the lack of representation I also want the magazine to be fun
Books about black women obviously already exist, some of them being fictional while others are bibliographies. An example of a fictional story would be Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, while an autobibliography would be I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Magazines for and about black women exist already as well such as Essence, Munaluchi Bride, Melan and Black Beauty and Hair as a few examples. All of these examples except from two have physical and digital magazines, while Melan and Essence only has a magazine website
Looking at their websites (not counting Black Beauty and Hair & Munaluchi Bride since they have a specific niche), they mainly talk about interviews/articles about famous black women, hair, films featuring black women as leading roles, relationships, travel and fashion
Initial Research
Knowing other black women magazines will help me with article ideas as I'll be able to see what pre-established companies already do, but I'm planning to make this local so I likely won't be talking about celebrities or travel. What I can talk about though is hair as I know there are a lot of different black hairstylists in town and I should be able to interview at least one of them. I could also try and find a local film that stars a black woman in a main role, but I'd have to do more research on it as I can't think of any from the top of my head
I tried looking for any black women focused magazines that are about Luton but I wasn't able to find any. I looked at local news sites like Luton Today since that could be beneficial to get ideas for articles from too, but I wasn't able to find much. I found an article about Next Generation Theatre Group CIC (NGYT)'s free workshops on Saturday (March 11) and Saturday (March 25). One of the workshops is about African Drumming, but I don't know if its really worth putting this in my magazine. By the time I'm in production this'll have already happened as well. Going on their website though gives me an idea of interviewing one of their actors and also the Hat Factory for anything similar as well
I also looked at the film nights Bute Street Festival hosts to see if I could also talk about any films with black women as leads and found Bahar &Nanny, on the screening there's also a Q&A with Alysia Maciejowska who was the films producer. The film will be screened at Wednesday 10th May, 19:30pm. It's hard to tell if the film was made by someone in Luton though (the films set in New York and some other films that'll be screened at their film night are made by people who aren't in Luton). There are also other festival programmes like The Peoples Art Exhibition which features a Jamaican-British photographer, but it doesn't say who and only has this short description of them. There's a film that'll be screened on Friday 14th April called Pick It, which is a film about black hair. On Saturday 15th April there's a talk with Adeyinka Akinrinade, an actor from Luton who's also worked on Riches on Amazon Prime
Doing this research gives me ideas of what I could write articles about (films featuring black women like Bahar &Nanny or films about them like Pick It) and people I could possibly interview for my magazine (the photographer and Adeyinka Akinrinade), although I'd have to ask Bute Street Festival who the photographer is
After getting feedback from my tutor, I've decided to go with a luxury magazine that talks about successful black women (not focused on local people only). Since I don't know much about luxury magazines I decided to look into them, the first one being TIME magazine
TIME magazine is a highly influential American magazine that covers current news. They have many different categories like TIME100, a list which features the 100 Most Influential People of the year, and TIME Studios which make documentaries. Since they cover current news they have many different topics that they talk about such as: sports, politics, business, technology, entertainment, science and history to name a few. Looking at their website TIME only does digital magazines and only sell their front covers as photographs on their store
They also did a list of "100 Women of the Year" as TIME was known for doing a Man of the Year. This list went back to the year TIME was created to do this and (starts with 1920's woman of the year and ends off with 2019's one). They also have a page dedicated to Black History Month and stories related to black people. Some of the articles featured talk about: education, exhibits, politics and promoting black creators
I then looked at Bazaar, another luxury magazine that focuses on fashion and beauty. It also has articles on culture, travel, brides, celebrities and opinionated articles. They also have articles promoting black women and another with their struggles on depression. Aside from their website, they only do printed magazines
Vanity Fair is another luxury magazine. Except from their website, they have an option to do a printed + digital magazine or a digital magazine only. They have a variety of different topics and don't focus on a specific one (they're currently focused on the oscars but that's because as of writing this its happening in four days). They have articles about politics, business, Hollywood, royals, culture, style and celebrities
For the most part luxury magazines seem to talk about the same things (fashion/beauty, politics, celebrities), this gives me ideas to include celebrities in my magazine. I likely won't be able to interview them but I can showcase them and their work like TIME does with their annual TIME100 list
Agbontaen, I. (2020) 5 Black women shaping the future in 2020. Available at: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/g34273854/5-black-women-shaping-the-future/. Accessed at: 08.03.23
BAZAAR. (2023) Harper's BAZAAR. Available at: https://www.harpersbazaar.com. Accessed at: 08.03.23
Black Beauty and Hair. (2023) Black Beauty & Hair online. Available at: https://www.blackbeautyandhair.com. Accessed at: 07.03.23
Bute Street Festival. (2023) FESTIVAL PROGRAMME. Available at: https://www.butestreetfilmfestival.com/programme. Accessed at: 08.03.23
Bute Street Festival. (2023) FILM NIGHTS. Available at: https://www.butestreetfilmfestival.com/filmnights. Accessed at: 08.03.23
CRWN. (2023) CRWNMAG. Available at: https://www.crwnmag.com. Accessed at: 07.03.23
Cummings, N. (2023) Free activities for young people at Luton Youth Theatre this March. Available at: https://www.lutontoday.co.uk/whats-on/things-to-do/free-activities-for-young-people-at-luton-youth-theatre-this-march-4052556. Accessed at: 07.03.23
Essence. (2023) Black Women's Lifestyle Guide, Black Love & Beauty Trends. Available at: https://www.essence.com. Accessed at: 07.03.23
FeedSpot. (2023) Top 15 Black Women Magazines & Publications. Available at: https://blog.feedspot.com/black_women_magazines/. Accessed at: 07.03.23
Jones, A. Ulubay, G. Rodriguez, B. (2022) 27 Books by Black Women That Should Really Be on Your Bookshelf. Available at: https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/g26075869/best-books-by-black-authors/. Accessed at: 07.03.23
Jordan-Zachery, J. (2022) What Everyone Gets Wrong About High-Achieving Black Women and Depression. Available at: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a39574035/what-everyone-gets-wrong-about-high-achieving-black-women-and-depression/. Accessed at: 08.03.23
Luton Today. (2023) Home. Available at: https://www.lutontoday.co.uk. Accessed at: 07.03.23
Melan. (2023) Melan Magazine - An Online Magazine For Stylish and Smart Black Women. Available at: https://melanmag.com. Accessed at: 07.03.23
NGYT. (2023) NGYT. Available at: https://ngyt.co.uk/upourstreet/. Accessed at: 08.03.23
Munaluchi Bridal. (2023) Multicultural Weddings, African American Brides, Black Brides. Available at: https://www.munaluchibridal.com. Accessed at: 07.03.23
The Culture Trust Luton. (2023) Hat Factory Arts Centre. Available at: https://www.culturetrust.com/venues/hat-factory-arts-centre. Accessed at: 08.03.23
TIME. (2019) 100 Women of the Year. Available at: https://time.com/100-women-of-the-year/. Accessed at: 08.03.23
TIME. (Year unknown) Black History Month | TIME. Accessed at: https://time.com/tag/black-history-month/. Accessed at: 08.03.23
TIME. (2023) TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates. Available at: https://time.com. Accessed at: 08.03.23
Vanity Fair. (2023) Entertainment, Politics, and Fashion News. Available at: https://www.vanityfair.com. Accessed at: 08.03.23
Daily Diary 07/03
Today was the first day of the unit, this'll be my final project
I knew my idea for a long while, it's obvious which one it is because of the differences in how long each idea is. One of the reasons I chose my idea is due to lack of representation, but its also because I want to see for myself how many black women there are in media and other industries. While I don't know if it'll be about one specific industry or more general, I know I at least want to include an article on hair or interview someone media related
I'm excited for how the end product will turn out, but I'm not sure if I'm fully looking forward to these next weeks. I notice I'm not good at working during long breaks (last FMP's Easter holiday was stressful for this reason), but it should be a bit better hopefully since I at least have a laptop at home now
Daily Diary 08/03
Today I got feedback on my initial ideas, continued with my initial research and wrote the first draft of my project proposal
I was originally going to make the magazine focused on Luton, but after getting feedback from my tutor about my idea I've decided to go with a high end luxury magazine focused on the same topic. This means that I don't have to only limit myself to people locally
While writing my project proposal I was stuck on what my audience feedback should be. I didn't want to repeat the exact same things I did during my last FMP, but I couldn't think of much else I could do. I didn't enjoy having a focus group that much but I feel like it could be a good way to get continuous audience feedback, my main issue with it is getting anything substantial and reliable as sometimes people can take a long time responding. To circumvent this I could use social media the people in my focus group constantly go on, like Facebook as that's what my target audience likely uses
Project Proposal 1st Draft Feedback
Project Proposal
Research List
Daily Diary 09/03
Today I did my research list and finished my project proposal
I'm never that good with making my research list so the feedback from my tutor helped me a lot (my original questions were too vague so I seperated them and made them more consice). I'm happy with what I have to research and feel like it should be enough to make my magazine, although I do know I'll have to do research during all stages of production
For Bute Street Film Festival tickets, I only have to buy tickets for the Friday 14th April. The show starts at 5pm-10pm and the talk with Akua Gyamfi and Gabrielle A Smith starts at 8pm, so I'd have to stay for at least that long. There's also the talk with Adeyinka Akinrinade on the day after, but I feel like interviewing Akua Gyamfi and Gabrielle A Smith would be better for the magazine due to their jobs (Akua Gyamfi is the founder of the British Black List and Gabrielle A Smith is the founder of The NUBLK)
I did this plan for what the pages could be about (the [BLANK] pages mean its undecided), I'm not fully sure on it since this would mean I'd have only interviewed two people and that's not really what I was going for. I might use two of the blank spaces for another interview page instead, my only worry with that is that it'd mean the interviews might be less spaced out. I'm also unsure about the adverts as there might need to be more of them - I'd need to do research on that to find out how many there usually are in a luxury magazine though
I wanted to start researching for the articles since I was the least sure about them. I started with the Black women who’d be featured in the magazine as the articles will likely revolve around them
I first did research on the women I’d definitely be interviewing, Akua Gyamfi and Gabrielle A Smith, as I’d be going to their discussion panel in person. I anticipate that I should be able to ask them questions at the end of their event, but just in case I’ll find their emails if I need to contact them further
Akua Gyamfi has her own page on the British Independent Film Awards. She has over 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry with a variety of jobs in fashion, film, TV, theatre and has worked in both print and online media
When she was first starting out, she was a hair stylist on Portobello Road in London. Her reputation from this job lead her to work with many different magazines such as Vogue, Disorder, BOLZ and i-D. She was part of the Paul Hanlon hair team for both London and Paris fashion weeks for Matthew Williamson, Topshop Unique, Jonathan Saunders and Giles just to name a few. She’s helped with editorial campaigns for brands such as Hugo Boss, Jaeger, UniQlo and Aquascutum. Akua has also worked on set for many music videos and Rollin’ With the Nines, a British gangster film
On her IMDb page she’s also listed as the additional crew (consultant) for Black Hollywood: 'They've Gotta Have Us' (2018), the writer & casting director for After Effects (2010) and was recently in a German documentary called The Year of the Rat (2022). She’s also won two awards: The Mercury Studios Business Award in 2022 from Women in Film and TV Awards, UK and the Diversity Badge of Honour in 2023 from the Girls on Film Awards
After Effects, co-written by her and director Mark 1, was a short film about anti-knife and gun crime. Akua learnt about script writing because of this and soon became a script consultant for new screenwriters and playwrights, some of the scripted productions she helped with even went on to win awards
Akua eventually left her full-time career in hairstyling to study journalism at London College of Communications (formerly London College of Printing), becoming a freelance journalist. She assisted Bolz (a French/British magazine), shadowed and interviewed Ken Livingstone during his 2008 mayoral campaign, edited blogs for radio 1Xtra DJ’s Ace & Vis, made her own blog called Soul Pages and was the editor for a print and online magazine called Candy
She’s also worked at Channel AKA (formerly Channel U), working with a team to turn the channel around. She’s worked at the BBC for numerous occasions: their Performing Arts Fund, BBC Writersroom and BBC R&D
Akua is the founder of The British Blacklist. It was launched in 2012 to be a media outlet for BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) professionals specialising in entertainment. The media brand has gone on to be respected and win awards for putting a spotlight on British black professionals in screen, stage, sound and literature. It was unique for how it documented and championed their achievements
Akua has been a commentator for news outlets such as Channel 5 and BBC 5 Live. She’s part of the board of The New Black Film Collective and regular sits in screenings and regularly collaborates with We Are Parable, an event organization that’s known for curating An Audience with Spike Lee in 2017. She also regularly sits for screenings and panel discussions hosted by The New Black Film Collective, We Are Parable and the BFI
On her Instagram she has many different links. Along with currently being the founder of The British Blacklist, she’s also the creator and host of Your Aunties Could Never, the co-producer and host of The Circle and the co-founder of S.O.U.L. Fest
Your Aunties Could Never is a podcast featuring Akua Gyamfi, Farrah, Nana Evans and Sade Salami. The podcast talks about topical news and politics, pop culture and also has an advice block. Their podcast is free to listen to on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Google and Amazon. There’s a new episode every Tuesday at 8pm (GMT)
S.O.U.L. Fest is a film festival celebrating Black British talent in film by showing new features and shorts with a diverse representation of Black Britain. The aim of the festival is to make the British Film and TV industry more diverse and to connect BAME filmmakers and audiences together. This festival is also backed by The British Blacklist and We Are Parable
The Circle is another podcast, its Instagram states it’s about “British Black & Brown visionaries across TV & Film”. A new episode comes out every Sunday at 12pm
She doesn't have a separate email I could contact, she does have her own Instagram though and it seems active enough as it has a post from this year
After doing research on her it’s clear that she’d be great to interview for my magazine as we have similar goals, supporting and uplifting Black people (in her case its more general). She has a lot of experience in many different fields in entertainment, but a question that came up to me while I was doing research was how she manages all of this. Two podcasts, an annual film festival and frequently appearing in talks sounded very busy. While looking at the podcast Your Aunties Could Never, it’s also implied she might have a family to take care of too. She also doesn’t follow a set career path which is something I want to ask about too (how did she end up studying journalism? What pushed her to move on from her successful hairstyling career?)
When doing research on Akua I also found an article about her being scammed by a fake sponsor, but didn’t include it since I don’t think it’ll be relevant to what I’ll be writing
Gabrielle A Smith a British-Grenadian creative and producer, her work has been in the newsroom and "Black Twitter" since 2009. This gave her experience with approaching her work dynamically. A lot of the work Gabrielle does is about shedding light onto overlooked stories, trends and movements led by historically marginalised communities. She's the founder of the:nublk, a platform similar to The British Blacklist, a digital platform that's goal is to highlight the Black diaspora (meaning a group of people scattered across regions that aren't their original homeland) in art, film, conversation and collaboration
the:nublk started as a personal blog in 2008 that Gabrielle created to celebrate Black History Month, she was a trainee broadcast designer at the time. She interviewed other emerging black creators who explored their identity and cultural heritage through their work. After the month was over she decided to continue and after six years the blog grew to become a leading platform for emerging and established Black creatives from interviews, events and online discussions. In 2015/16 as the social media landscape changed and activism became more prominent, the:nublk went from a blog to becoming a platform for producing culturally impactful events. It still collaborates with individuals and platforms who also want more diversity and inclusion in the creative and media industry. The website now serves as an archive of Black creativity. Many of the people who were emerging creatives at the time went on to become some of the most prominent filmmakers, authors, curators, actors, visual artists and poets in the creative and media industry
She created the majority of the:nublk from the website/social media content to its promotional materials. The site and social medias have also had contributors from various people such as creative takeovers, interns and family & friends of the:nublk. Collaboration with individuals and other platforms has also been a big part of the:nublk
Her work with the:nublk gave her speaking opportunities and invites into special events, she's also worked with many organisations such as: Where Are The Black Designers, Google, Africa Utopia, Black Blossoms, Social Media Week, The Black Cultural Archives and South By Southwest (SXSW). Her work has also been featured in both print and digital publications such as Essence Magazine, Design Week, Creative Lives in Progress and We Inspire Me by author Andrea Pippins
The digital platform has worked with others to create many different exhibitions such as: Children of the Gap with Kojo Owusu-Kusi, A Seat at the Table with Janine Francois, Stella Odunlami and Dre Ferdinand, More Than XY with Marlon Cole (founder of forFathers) and many more. They've also created merchandise, hosted film screenings and created a cross platform series called "30 Women Creators We Love"
Main Research
I wanted to look further at the 30 Women Creators We Love page. There's a link to the interviews on the page, but it only links to the third article on it. In the article it talks about Lakwena Maciver, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Lesley Asare, Tee Fergus and Jamilla Okubo. It goes over each of their jobs, what they're known for, what they've recently done and what else they do. At the end of their section they also have a quote presumingly said from the women
Gabrielle also works as a visual editor and creative consultant who specifies in art direction, inclusive storytelling, design for film and social media. On her LinkedIn she says she's best known for two things: her 10+ years of experience in digital and broadcast news design and for identifying trends and movements that require more attention from the world at large
She's active on LinkedIn as she's reposted something a day ago. On the:nublk's website there's also an option to contact Gabrielle for an interview/speaking opportunity, hello@iamthenublack.com
Gabrielle focuses a lot on the:nublk, so I'll mainly ask questions about that to her. I'll likely be asking similar questions to her and Akua as their work is very similar. Doing research on both of these people will help me with creating questions as I'll know their background, it'll also help me with writing each of their 'articles' for the same reason. I tried to look at her portfolio website but almost all of the links are dead other than the one for the:nublk, which just links to that site
I'm also planning on interviewing Nima Elbagir, but I don't know for certain if I'll be interviewing her. She’s not active on Facebook or LinkedIn, her last post on Facebook was from 2020. She seems active enough on Twitter (@nimaelbagir), but I don’t know if it’d be the best idea to contact her on there. I'd rather do the research after I get confirmation from her as there's a possibility I won't be interviewing her at all. And since I don't know who else I'll be interviewing, I can't do more research on anyone else
I then decided to do research on what the articles should be about. I plan to dedicate two or three articles to each of the people who'll be interviewed (as in they'll be related to the interviewee, an example being a company owner getting an article about how to start your own successful business), but I also had some ideas for articles
From my initial research, many luxury magazines consistently have articles on: celebrities, culture, fashion/beauty and travel. One of my ideas was an article about a celebrity, it wouldn’t be an interview but would instead be a write up of how they rose to fame. Another idea I had while looking at TIMES Magazine was an article on an influential black woman from at least two decades ago as a lot of them are buried from public conscious. I also want to try and write an article on mental health as it’s something that isn’t talked about much in general, but especially for this audience. Ultimately the point of the magazine is to inspire younger black women, so I want the articles to reflect that. That would still leave me with three blank spaces I could fill in if I stick to the plan I already have, but I'm unsure if I will
The first thing that immediately came to mind for me was Ruth E. Carter being the first black woman to win two Oscars this year. I didn't know much about the Oscars though as I don't watch it, so I had to do a bit of research into it. She won two Oscars for best costume design on both of the Black Panther films. She won the first reward in 2018 and was the first African American to win the award. When creating the costumes for Black Panther, she incorporated African diaspora into the garments
Carter has worked on other big Hollywood films such as Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" and Steven Spielberg's "Amistad", both of these films getting her Oscar nominations. She's also worked on Lee Daniels' "The Butler," Ava DuVernay’s "Selma" and the reboot of "ROOTS.". Over her career she's planned and created costumes for celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy and Jerry Seinfeld for the "Seinfeld" pilot.
She started her career in 1988 on Spike Lee’s "School Daze," the director's second film. Since then they've worked together on more than 10 films, including "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever." Other films she's worked on include Robert Townsend's "The Five Heartbeats" and Keenen Ivory Wayans' "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka."
Carter participated in a Press Room Speech after the Oscars and was answered questions from the audience. A quote from Carter that I feel would fit in my magazine would be "I pulled myself up from my bootstraps, I started in a single parent household. I wanted to be a costume designer. I studied. I scraped. I dealt with adversity in the industry that sometimes didn’t look like me. And I endured. So I feel that this win opens up the door for other young costume designers that, you know, may not think that this industry is for them and hopefully they'll see me and they'll see my story and they'll think that they can win an Oscar too."
She has more detail on herself on her portfolio website. She's described as "an essential storyteller committed to sharing the past, present, and future of Black culture" which is evident on the films she's worked on (Malcolm X, Amistad and Black Panther). She's attended Hampton University (called "historically black college") and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Theater Arts. She originally pursued acting but ended up liking costume design when she worked in her college wardrobe department
She was an apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera before moving to Los Angeles and designing costumes for stage productions and dance studios. This later led onto working with Spike Lee in 1988 for his film "School Daze", since then she's worked on 14 films with him. She's also worked with other directors such as Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay and John Singleton. In 2019 she was featured on a Netflix documentary about artists and designers called Abstract. In the same year she was awarded a Career Achievement award by the Costume Designers Guild along with multiple other awards
I felt like I knew enough about Ruth Carter and her Oscar winnings to write an article about it, so I moved onto the next topic I planned to do. Since I'm planning to interview both Akua Gyamfi and Gabrielle A Smith and they both run organisations about spotlighting BAME professionals, I thought a nice but not obvious topic semi-related to them would be an article talking about a historic black woman figure
To find someone to base the article on, I wanted to look at a list of influential black women but not anyone too recent (I was looking for people before the 2000s) so I looked at Today’s article called 17 Black women who shaped history. From the list I decided to go with Harriet Tubman as she seems significantly important but unheard of (which was the reason why I was avoiding Rosa Parks, as I've been taught about her in school before). I found a biography of her on the National Women's History Museum, so I looked through that first
Tubman is known as the "Moses of her people" due to her being previously enslaved before she escaped and helped others gain their freedom. To do this she became a "conductor" of the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War she was also a scout, guerrilla soldier and nurse for the Union Army, many consider her to be the first African American woman to serve in the military
Her exact birth date isn't known but is estimated to be between 1820 - 1822. She was born in Dorchester County, Maryland and had eight siblings. When Tubman was five she was already working, her owners rented her out to neighbours to work as a domestic servant. When she was twelve she stepped between her master and an enslaved man who tried to escape, she ended up getting hit with a two-pound weight. This ultimately affected her for the rest of her life as she had to deal with severe headaches and narcolepsy ever since
In 1844 she entered a martial union with John Tubman, a free black man, even though slaves weren't legally allowed to marry. Her previous name before this was Araminta Ross
The Underground Railroad wasn't created by Tubman like many people thought, the railroad was originally established by abolitionists in the late eighteenth century. She and two brothers escaped north and the network greatly helped her, her husband refused to join however and eventually married a free black woman in 1851 instead. Tubman went back to the South multiple times, helping thousands of people at the time escape. She had never lost a "passenger" and was so effective at it that slaveowners posted a $40k reward for her capture or death, but she was never caught
Due to her work with the Underground Railroad, Tubman learned about the South's towns and transportation routes. This made her valuable to the Union military commanders who recruited her as a Union spy and scout. To disguise herself she often hid as an aging woman, wandering the streets to learn about the Confederates troop placements and supply lines from the enslaved population. While she was there she also helped many of them find food, shelter, and even jobs in the North. She became a respected guerrilla operative and worked as a nurse, using herbal remedies to soldiers dying from infection and disease. She also supported other antislavery efforts such as helping John Brown with his failed 1859 raid on the Harpers Ferry, Virginia arsenal
When the war was over, Tubman (along with Elizabeth Cady, Susan B. Anthony and Stanton) raised funds to aid freedmen. She cared for her aging parents while working with white writer Sarah Bradford on her autobiography, seeing the opportunity as a potential source of income. She later married Nelson Davis, a Union soldier who was also born into slavery. They later lived in Auburn, New York, where she cared for the elderly in her home, and adopted a daughter in 1874 with her husband. Nelson Davis died in 1888 but Tubman only got awarded $8 per month as his widow in 1895, and that was after an extensive campaign for a military pension. She also got $20 in 1899 for her military service. She established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged in 1895 nearby her home. She later passed in 1913 and was buried with military honors at Forth Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York
The website was very comprehensive but I wanted to see if I missed anything so I looked at other sites such as History. The place she was born in was a plantation. Her parents were Harriet "Rit" Green and Benjamin Ross. When Tubman still went by her original name her parents called her "Minty". Rit was a cook in the plantation's "big house" while Benjamin was a timber worker
Tubman had changed her first name to Harriet to honor her mother. Despite Rit's desperate attempts, the family was forced to keep themselves seperate due to slavery. Due to her experience working as a nursemaid, Tubman was left with permanent emotional and physical scars. Around when she was seven she was rented to set muskrat traps, she was later rented out as a field hand
When talking about the weight that struck her head when she was twelve, she said "The weight broke my skull … They carried me to the house all bleeding and fainting. I had no bed, no place to lie down on at all, and they laid me on the seat of the loom, and I stayed there all day and the next." Her narcolepsy had caushed her to fall deeply asleep at random points of her life. She also had vivid dreams and hallucinations which she claimed were religious visions (Christian). Because of this she wasn't attractive to slave buyers and renters
Benjamin, Tubman's father, was set free and Rit's owner's last will was written to have set her and her children free as well. However Rit's new owner refused to recognise the will which meant that Rit, Tubman and the rest of her children were still slaves
On the 17th of September 1849, Tubman along with her brothers Ben and Henry escaped the Maryland plantation. Ben and Henry eventually changed their minds and went back but Tubman decided to travel instead. She went to Pennsylvania to escape, working as a housekeeper in Philadelphia for awhile before realising she was unsatisfied living on her own. Because of this she returned to the south and lead her niece and her niece's children to Philadelphia with the Underground Railroad
The Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 caused problems for Tubman as the act allowed fugitive and freed workers in the north to be captured and enslaved. She had to lead enslaved people further north to Canada and travelled at night, normally during spring or fall as the days became shorter. She gained connections to other abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, Martha Coffin Wright and Thomas Garret over the decade
She was able to establish her own Underground Railroad network later on. Its widely reported that she had emancipated 300 enslaved people, but Tubman claimed the numbers were much lower compared to what was in her biography
Her previous husband John had died in 1867, a year before she married Nelson Davis. Her adopted child was a little girl named Gertie. She was illiterate but toured the northeast to speak on behalf of the women's suffrage movement, working with noted leader Susan B. Anthony. She died on the 10th March 1913 due to pneumonia
Doing research into both of these will help me for when I have to write my articles on them. I also feel like I've done enough research into these topics to not have to continue doing research into them after I've decided on all the topics for my other articles, which will save me a bit more time
I felt like I did enough research on the topics, especially since I don't have a lot of time left. I know that I haven't done all of the topics yet but I at least did research into the two that I felt most confident in including in the magazine. I decided to finish doing research for articles by looking at the tones luxury magazines write their articles in
The first article I looked at was an article called Men’s Style: Luxury Accessories To Elevate Your Look In 2023 by LLM Reporters (Luxury Lifestyle Magazine). This article is written formally. It has a professional tone throughout and uses phrases such as "elevate", "excellent quality", "contemporary", "bold luxe look" and "looking sharp". It also features detailed descriptions, both of these working with the article as its recommending luxury accessories. They refer to the reader a lot throughout the article and ask questions due to the topic of the article (recommending luxury accessories to the reader). There are accompanying pictures for every accessory, most of them are close ups of hands and arms but there are also two images that mid to almost-full shots of people with the accessory. Only one of the images in the article are black and white
While I'm on this website, I can also see a few social medias that are linked at the top of the page's header. There's a link for their Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Flipboard and Apple News. There's also an option to subscribe to their newsletter on the site on the other side of the header
I wasn't sure what Flipboard was so I looked into it. Looking at its home page it features articles from big news outlets like CNN, Fox News and The Guardian. A review on PCMag says that its a news-reading app that gathers articles from all over the web and sends them to you as a Smart Magazine that you can tailor your interests to. It's also an app on both Android and the Apple Store
The site also has its main categories onto the top of the page like most magazine sites do: travel, food & drink, style & beauty, health, home & gardens, property, tech, "drive, style & fly" (private jets, yachts, boats and motorbikes) and more (drop down menu: money & business, sports & betting, the rest is about the magazine itself)
The next article I looked at was What does China’s reopening mean for the luxury sector? by Luxury London. The social media links the website has are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and its at the bottom of their menu page (menu is the three lines on the left). Luxury London also does print magazines while LLM doesn't
Quickly looking at the site its similar to the previous one, its main article topics are style, culture, lifestyle, wellbeing, taste, travel and property. I skimmed through each of the links and noticed a lot of the articles were dedicated to recommending places and products to the reader. Culture is the topic that has them the least as it mainly focuses on the world, media and celebrities. Taste has a subsection called "Meet the chef" where it interviews various chefs from established restaurants to MasterChef winners
The colour palette of the site is predominantly black and white but there's also shades of brown, pink, green and peach (this is mainly seen in the headings in the site menu). I notice a lot of the pictures used on the site also feature these colours like some of the articles below. Looking back at LLM, it also uses different colours for each topic heading in its home page but uses more vibrant colours such as royal blue. These colours are used minimally on the site, although Luxury London does use them more often like with pop ups for their newsletter
Below the articles title & subheading are options to share the article on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, email and WhatsApp. The article itself is written similarly to LLM, its formal but more factual due to the topic (in LLM's article it'd likely be better to use more descriptions rather than factual statements as it entices readers to purchase the accessories rather than try to wow them with interesting facts about the accessories). They also use a lot of quotes from different people who work in business
The last article I wanted to look at was Star Gazing: Black Women Living Their Best Lives This Past Weekend from Essence. The colour palette used on the site are black and white with an accent colour like other brands, Essence uses magenta. They also have their social medias linked at the bottom of the menu: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube
I first looked at the main topics the magazine focuses on, which are listed below. Most of these topics are the same as the other luxury magazines I've analysed but they also have a few other topics such as love, festival and videos listed as their own seperate categories. Essence also has a section for hair which caters to their target audience, mainly using photos of famous black women for their articles (as black women are Essence's target audience). Because of how general some of the sections are they often overlap with eachother (beauty articles and videos being shown when selecting hair in the menu). Essence Studios showcases original shows and documentaries by Essence
Something I wanted to look at in particular was Girls United. Girls United is dedicated to young Black women who want to foster a digital community. They specifically cater to Gen Z and have resources for helping them with creativity, beauty, wellness and provide help for young entrepreneurs. They also have a podcast called Magic Unfiltered, a newsletter and create videos. Girls United have seperate Instagram and Twitter accounts from Essence
There's a Girls United Summit that's happening this year that'll have workshops, panels, a beauty village, a marketplace and networking opportunities. The Summit works as a safe space for young Black women, girls and non-binary people. This years topics tackle climate change, activism in education and reproductive rights
Onto the article, it surprised me how different this article reads to the luxury magazines I've looked at thus far. While Essence isn't a luxury magazine, its a magazine with the same target audience as mine which is why I wanted to look at it with a bit more detail. The tone of the article is completely different compared to luxury magazines, being informal and friendly
There's also options to share the article on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or email off to the side
I wanted to quickly look at Melan since thats a magazine with the same target audience, with their main difference being "a new online magazine for stylish and smart women of colour". Because of their focus on "‘grown’ smart, stylish Black women" I expected their articles to be written more similarly to luxury magazines rather than Essence
The main colours for Melan are black, white and teal (the teal accent promotes a more mature look). There's also different colours for each topic as well that are listed below, some of them have subsections like Health & Wellbeing being in Beauty. The main topics for Melan are: fashion, beauty, people, living, travel, melan-in business and competitions. They have their social media links up top (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest) and also have options to share articles on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest (and also by email if you click on one of the articles)
For how the article is written, its written more like luxury brands than Essence's articles are. This is likely because of the topic being about travel, but I noticed the article is written more descriptively. To me it feels as if its written more like a blog article with how it takes the reader through the writer's experience
For the most part luxury magazines have a very consistent style when it comes to their article writing and brand. Articles are written formally with sophisticated language and are often about getting the reader to buy something (accessories/fashion, beauty products, vacations, etc). They use descriptive and emotional language when they're promoting something such as travelling or products. From all of the luxury magazines I've seen so far throughout research, the main topics all luxury magazines have are: fashion, beauty, lifestyle and travel. Because of this I know I'll have to include articles about these topics
Luxury magazines are also mainly on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook the most so I'll include social media links to those for my magazine too. I might also include LinkedIn as it'll provide an easy way to connect with people on a more business-like social media platform. I'll also obviously include a link for my brand's hypothetical website
I then wanted to look at how all of these magazines are branded, specifically with their name and logo. I've compiled all the logos from the luxury magazines I've looked at so far and a few luxury brands as well as I felt like those could help too. While I was looking at some articles, I noticed a lot of luxury magazine logos looked pretty similar (similar fonts, same colour palettes other than a different accent colour). For print magazines the logos colour changes to match with the front cover, but otherwise its pure black. As seen on the right, this also goes for luxury brands as a whole
A lot of the luxury magazines are similar with their fonts specifically, they almost always use a serif font and use uppercase for their logos. This makes Melan's logo stand out more as it doesn't follow that, instead going for lowercase which doesn't seem to be common for luxury logos. On the right there are a lot of different logos, some have symbols like Chanel and Gucci. For those companies they often put the symbol on their products (such as Chanel putting just the symbol on their bags), often making them more iconic than the rest of the logo. Other logos don't have serif fonts like Kering or Balenciaga and instead the font is more stretched and spaced out. Handwritten fonts can also be used but seem to be less popular. I'd say Calvin Klein stands out the most as it uses a skinnier and more basic-looking font
When it comes to names, a lot of luxury brands are simply named after the person who created the brand (Dior, Fendi, Calvin Klein). There are some magazines that do this too such as Conde Nast Traveller or Robb Report, but I didn't want to do that though so I tried to look more at luxury magazines. Like most magazine brands, luxury magazines usually stick to one or two words when it comes to their brand name. Some magazines have literal names that link with the genre of the magazine (Jetset, Lifestyle Asia, Town & Country) or link to luxury as a whole such as Prestige or Haute Living. There are also a few luxury magazines that don't follow either conventions like How To Spend It or Four
I'll use a serif font similar to the ones most magazines use as it seems to be a consistent code and convention for luxury magazines. For the name of my magazine, since most of them use nouns, I've decided to name mine Adroitly since the word means smart and skillful which is what readers of my magazine are aspiring to be. I was originally intending my magazine to be monochrome with green and purple accents, but that was before I turned this into a luxury magazine. After looking at luxury magazine's colour palettes I think black and white could still work, but I think having only one accent would be better for cohesion. I'm going to go with purple as I originally chose that colour for my magazine as its a colour associated with royalty and femininity
Because of how many luxury magazines I've looked at I felt confident in saying that my advertisements in the magazine should be related to the biggest topics for articles (fashion, beauty, lifestyle or travel). Beauty would be the easiest as there are many luxury products for it out there and it'd be the most likely product my target audience would buy (my primary target audience are young black women who are starting their career journeys, so travel adverts aren't a great idea). So far I'm only planning to have two adverts in the magazine, but that might change a bit as there is potential for sponsored articles or top 10 articles that feature multiple luxury products. For now I decided to focus on the main two advert pages
My target audience would likely buy expensive and trusted brands that are chic and associated with business, since they're young they're likely to go with what everyone else wears as well. l decided to go with the 30 Montaigne Avenue Bag from Dior as it felt appropriately designed for the target audience and was a luxury bag, meaning they'll be willing to spend more on it as its a bag that'll last for a long time. I then wanted to choose a perfume from another brand, so I chose Louis Vuitton's Spell On You perfume. The perfume's description is about how this perfume is meant to envoke feelings of love and sensuality
Doing this research means I know what I'll be doing for my adverts in my magazine. I may not stick with these products specifically in the future, but they're at least a good starting point for what my adverts should feature. The Spell On You perfume gave me an idea for an article that could pair well with the perfume - an article about how to manage relationships and business at the same time
The last thing I have to do research on is how the magazine will be designed, specifically dealing with layout design. I plan to do more research for this during production as well, as I know I'll likely need it. I first looked at an article called Anatomy of a Magazine Layout, it features a few videos from their YouTube channel called Yes, I'm A Designer. This video goes over 15 terms and definitions for magazine layouts. The person in the video goes over a few magazine spreads that he likes
The first tip is to pay attention to both pages to the spread rather than individual ones. There should still be consistency between spread no matter what there is, such as an article on one page and an advert on another. Normally there'll be an introduction spread to a person an article is about before the actual article, but I don't have the space to do that
When making a double page spread three key things to keep in mind are: layout, images and the headline. The headline is the most important part and its common to see display type for them (custom designed or handwritten font that fits the article topic). The placement of the headline is usually on the top left side, but it can also be on the right. The reason why the left side is more common is due to how we read from left to right naturally
Sometimes the headline can be formatted differently such as the spread in the thumbnail. The headline is still cohesive though due to how its the same font throughout
One of the examples have two pages that layout-wise are different, but still work together due to how the spread is designed. Both pages use the same colour palette and fonts. The shapes on the left page also work with the square blockquote on the right page
The short text above the headline is called the kicker. Using a different font for the kicker and headline can work well to differentiate the two. Just below the headline is the intro / stand-first / deck, it has three different terms which mean the same thing. As the intro, its meant to introduce the article and get people interested in reading. It also works as a way to seperate the headline and the rest of the article
The byline is the line that tells you the writer of the article (by [BLANK]). They're common but can sometimes be left out
Body copy is the main article itself. The line length has to be comfortable to read (too long or too short isn't ideal), he says you'd probably want to set it around 45 to 80 characters with the spaces included
If there's no intro then the beginning part of the body copy can be considered the lead. The lead is usually emphasised with bold lettering. Another term for the lead is the nut graf (sentence that summarises the rest of the article without too much detail). Some argue that both terms mean the same thing
Another important part about working with the body copy is the baseline, as it should be standarised across the spread. Two seperate columns should match positions for example, making the lines of both columns match. The baseline grid on InDesign is something you can put on for a page or for the entire project file
Subheadings are normally used to break large parts of text. There can be multiple subheadings for different categories as well (causing subsubheadings and such). This can be useful as structure and heirarchy is an important part of magazine design, there's a lot of elements in a single spread so its important to guide readers through it. By having subheadings its more clear what order people are meant to read the article in and makes it less likely for people to jump around to reading different parts of the double page
Another key tool for magazine design are pull quotes. Pull quotes are usually from the article and are repeated in larger and bolder fonts in the page. It's called pull quotes because they can pull a reader in who might've originally been skimming pages. They don't necessarily have to be quotes, it can be a summary or an interesting fact. Pull quotes don't have to break up the structure of the body text and can instead be used independently like on the side of a page
Headers and footers are a reoccuring part of the magazine and can be used in different ways. It can either be consistent throughout the entire magazine or can be specific depending on the page (a page about a celeberity could have their name on the header instead for example). This can be useful if you're using multiple spreads for one topic as it lets the reader know that the topic is still continuing
Footers usually have more information. It has the magazine's folio which are normally used on both sides but can be used on just one (if it has to be on one side its recommended for it to be on the right). It can also have the magazine's website, the date or notes and references related to the article
The running head/feet means an element that continues throughout a few pages to indicate that the pages are about the same topic
That was the end of that video so I decided to watch another video on layout design, this one being more general. While the first video did a good job at teaching me the meaning of magazine layout terms and how to use them, I felt like I didn't get many tips on layout design as a whole from it. This video goes over five basic principles to keep in mind while designing a layout
Proximity is about using visual space to your advantage, related elements should be grouped together such as blocks of text. Anything not related to eachother should be seperated, this makes it easier to tell what's happening
White space means negative space - like the spaces between content, lines and outer margins. There isn't a specific way to use it correctly but understanding it can be useful to know. Like proximity, it gives your content room to breathe and easily seperates everything into groups
Alignment should be consistent. If it isn't, then the work can feel disorganised
Contrast helps with emphasising an element of something. It can be used in many different ways such as size, shape, visual weight or even contrasting styles of text
Hierarchy is often linked with contrast and helps with naturally figuring out the order they're meant to read something. When using hierarchy you can easily highlight specific parts of something to create more noticeable contrast
Repetition means a product should have a consistent look and feel throughout. This often means repeating certain elements of the design, such as colour palette or a header style. Doing this makes your work easier to read as the viewer will know what to expect
I decided to focus on the basics of layout design first as I felt like I was lacking the knowledge of the fundamentals. The first video was much more helpful than the second due to how it goes more in depth and is specifically about magazine design. The second video still helped me with five rules to follow for when I'll be designing my magazine. I'll be looking into specific parts of magazine design such as front covers during pre-production (and likely production) as well
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Daily Diary 14/03
Today I continued doing research on the people I was planning to interview, specifically Gabrielle A Smith
I think I'm making good progress on research so far, I'm already done with one topic and its only the start of the week. Between this week and the next one, I definitely have enough time to finish my research. The only worry I have is the research for each article as that will definitely take a lot of time and I'm not sure if its even worth doing in thorough detail, as none of the articles are set in stone yet
And for the third interview, I'm not sure if I should just add two more pages. I think 16 (technically 14 since that counts front & back cover) is enough already but I'm still worried about the pacing of the magazine, having all the interviews too close together doesn't sound right to me still
Daily Diary 15/03
Today I wasn't in as I went to UCA's Applicant Day, I couldn't do much research today due to me focusing on university rather than FMP. I'm slightly worried as I haven't done much currently on my research list
Daily Diary 16/03
Today I started research on the topics of the articles and tried to contact CNN Communications
I tried to find ways to contact Nima Elbagir and realised that I can't contact her directly. Her LinkedIn and Facebook aren't active, her Twitter DM's are closed and there's no links to her email or other social medias. There are multiple different contacts for CNN and I was able to find one for CNN Communications that might work (cnn.pr@turner.com), but I'm not that hopeful on it since the Facebook page I got that email from hasn't posted since 2021
I was recommended to interview someone on BVERU (Bedfordshire’s Violence and Exploitation Reduction Unit), specifically Tasha Case. Looking at the mini description of her provided I think she'd be a good fit for the magazine as well as she's the community & engagement lead. It feels unlikely that I'll get a response from Nima so this might be a better alternative
Daily Diary 21/03
Today I continued on my research and contacted Tasha Case to be interviewed for my magazine
I think I should be able to finish my research list before the pitch still, I'm only worried about how long doing topic research will take me. I'm trying not to go too in depth with my research since there are some things that might change (who I'm interviewing and the topics for articles), if I need to research anything more on them there's always time during the Easter break. I think so far my research list was very comprehensive (looking at my previous research list from FMP) but I know I'll still have more to do research on after the pitch
VERU Research Interview
The interview took awhile to set up behind the scenes, but it was worth it and was insightful. As said in the video I wasn't expecting some of the things VERU did like invest into activities such as sport and even horses, I didn't know there were multiple different VERU's as well across counties. I probably could've asked more questions about VERU but I felt like the questions I asked were enough and Tasha was very thorough with explaining everything to me. I felt like I acted well during the interview, I asked a few questions that weren't in the original email and didn't interupt Tasha while she was providing explanations
Doing this interview will help me for writing about VERU later on as part of Tasha's interview pages. I previously went on the website before the interview and was able to get insight into things that aren't listed on the site such as VERU's career opportunities. I'm not sure if I'll be writing a lot about VERU in the first place so this interview should cover everything I need to write about it, but If I need to find out more (like all the charities they support) then I can go to their website
Daily Diary 22/03
Today I conducted the first interview with Tasha Case and had my first progress review. I also did a bit of research into one of my topics and contacted magazines and magazine designers for help with designing
After the interview me and Tasha briefly discussed what we would do about the next interview and the photoshoot, she said four weeks later should be fine but that she has to go to the hospital and the date for it isn't 100% confirmed yet (its currently scheduled to happen around next week). She'll tell me if the date changes so I'll always be aware
During the progress review I was told to focus on primary research since I was mainly focusing on finishing my secondary research. I'm currently sending out emails to magazine designers and local magazines on advice for designing layouts as that's my main struggle currently. I emailed local magazines such as Community Interest Luton, MiMagazine, County Life, Families Bedfordshire and Bedslife. I also emailed some magazine designers I found on Behance: Ilya Lozgachev, Florian Cornut, Fahd Tohry, Alice Monzani, Valerie Shmykova and Nazrin Almazzada. I added in the questions in the original email I sent as I don't have much time left for them to respond. I feel like I could've structured the email better and I didn't ask enough questions or that the questions were too vague, but I wasn't sure what else to ask and I didn't want to ask things I already knew about
Daily Diary 23/03
Today I continued my research, moving on from topics to focusing on other luxury magazines
Since a lot of my research about luxury magazines can be done at the same time (tone they use in articles, branding and social media they use), I'm not particularly worried about not being able to finish my research on time. I stopped doing research on my topics a little earlier than I was hoping for but I had to because I needed to focus on more important things such as my magazines branding
While I was trying to find pages of Luxury London's print magazine, I found Graham Parker's portfolio site. They're a London copywriter who's done work for Luxury London and other magazines. I sort of wrote this on a whim, mainly because it said on the website that they'd respond quickly, but writing an article for luxury magazines is something new for me so I felt like their answer would be helpful to me. I likely could've phrased it better and asked specific questions but I wasn't sure what to ask and I knew its best if I sent the email as early as I possibly could
Feedback from Luxury Copywriters
I got a response from Mike Peake about a few tips for writing copy for my luxury magazine
The first tip is to assume the reader is already knowledgable about what the luxury brand provides (the example given is about yachts). This would make sense as it'll give me more time to sell the product rather than having to explain how it works
When writing for luxury products, its good to keep in mind what the audience will find interesting. The end goal is to make the product seem high-end and desirable rather than catering to the mass market. Its the little details that matter about a high-end product, like a Mont Blanc pen being worth thousands because it can write underwater or in space.
They say that writing for luxury often means flattery ("patting the reader on the back for making such an excellent purchase"), but it's important to not lean into this too hard as to not appear cloy. There's also a fine line between formality and being snooty
The last tip they have is to have fun and find my own style, even if its a bit different.
I think I'll be bringing my own style of writing to my copy either way as that's how writing tends to go, but I plan on trying to follow what luxury copywriters already do as I want to have a luxury brand. I feel like I'd need to have a core understanding of the rules of luxury copy myself before breaking any of them, which is something I just don't have. Knowing these few tips will help me for writing my copy for my own magazine, especially the part about the audience already being knowledgable in luxury products such as travel
Hayley Biggs sent me a link to her Instagram where she posts tips and advice on writing
One of the tips on there is understanding your audience. When you know why they buy something it'll make marketing for them much easier. For example, people hire personal trainers so they can have a body that makes them feel comfortable. Its important to focus on the end goal of why someone purchases something. Another tip is to have a bit of intrigue, write enough to make audiences interested enough to click on that link and find out more for themselves. Think about how to get your audience to take the next step
Knowing the core message of a brand is extremely important as without it, you can't successfully market something. Having brand guidelines is important as it means you know what you should or shouldn't say, therefore giving your writing more cohesion. This guideline should help you know what your brand should be communicating. Hayley uses six questions while writing copy, saying that there needs to be a framework for everything you write
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Audience - who are they?
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What do they struggle with, how does it make them feel?
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Problems they're having with existing solutions
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Difference your brand provides?
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How they can benefit from your help?
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How the benefit makes them feel?
Something else thats important is brand positioning (meaning how its positioned in the market). A few tips Hayley gives for market positioning are:
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Look at what successful competitors are doing and do something slightly different, base your USP around this
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Create content which supports the position you want in the market
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Think of your brand position as a person. How do they present themselves, what do they stand for, what are their values, what do they sound like and do they like expensive things or cheap deals. Doing this should make it easier to know what you should cater to
When writing for a luxury spa, Hayley created an emotional mood board for it using websites for spas, meditation, hotels, yoga retreats and holistic healing. Its about the feeling they're all promoting even though they're all different services. When making a moodboard you shouldn't just look at your competitors and instead should look into any brand that has the feeling you want for your own
Two other tips she mentions is creating a story and recording herself reading out what she wrote. Creating a story includes what the audience's challenges are and their desires. An example she gives is writing a copy for labels which sounds plain, but she found many different ways to connect with the intended audience. For some people labels can be a form of therapy, "a clean house is a happy house" and she made people aware of how happy they'll feel after labelling their jars and organising their home. She also records herself reading out what she's written to check for mistakes. When reading something on a screen, its common to naturally skip over spelling mistakes or grammatical errors
The last tip she has is thinking about what copy resonated with her and why it made her feel something. What language did they use and what was the tone? If she proofreads her work and finds it boring, she tweaks the words to bring more energy to it
Her Instagram helped a lot with how I should be writing my articles and what I should keep in mind while writing them (the six questions, creating an emotional moodboard and understanding what my audience desires). For my pitch I'll have to create a moodboard regardless, but when writing my articles I'll make another moodboard to help me with that (it'll likely feature words and articles rather than images). The tips on her Instagram helps a lot as I wasn't fully sure how I should be writing my articles prior to this. It also helps with the branding of my magazine and how I should think about it, the idea of thinking about brand positioning that way helps a lot as I work better when imagining a concept like that as a person
While I searched for the Instagram profile I came across another profile from someone who also works in luxury branding, Sarah Shuttle. One of her posts features her and Laura Payne Stanley, a certified coach and Ted talker, talking about her "seduction brand model" and how pushing a brand is less effective than pulling the audience in
When Sarah does work for a client, the questions she asks is "What are we trying to promote?" and "What feelings do I need to envoke to promote this effectively?" Sarah also says "We buy on emotion and how we feel." Laura adds to this by saying "There's two ways we buy: we buy on emotion and logic." Most brands assume logic will win and generate more sales, but for most people emotions are more stronger reasons for purchasing something even if it doesn't make much logical sense
Laura mentions "You need to connect with your ideal client." And Sarah says "You also need to know who your client is." Laura's business model is all about pulling the target audience in by connecting with them, with emotions being a part of that. As she puts it, "Desire is the very moment you've achieved what you want. So desire is before you've said yes to the purchase." Most brands say that they want their brand to feel safe, but that isn't a desire people can latch onto. Safety is a feeling that usually comes later on but its not felt that much during the purchase state. A lot of people get excited waiting for a delivery to arrive, the seduction model is meant to bring that feeling out before people buy the product
Part of the model is also knowing what the target audience wants (what do they want to feel like? - not every brand wants a big bold emotion). People want to feel secure with their money. Laura gives a tip to people wanting to try the business model by saying "The quickest way you can go wrong is by not knowing what you're trying to activate." An example Sarah gives is that financial advisors know that their client wants financial advice, but just knowing that isn't enough
Laura says that when brands try and market themselves on the five senses, a lot of them stick too heavily on one sense (for example they rely too much on the visual). Knowing all five can help as you might have to make a video for your brand and you'll need to know what audio you want for it. Sometimes brands will use trending music even if it doesn't connect with the rest of the brand, which can confuse people and make them uninterested in the brand. The sense that people forget about the most is smell, that sense can envoke old memories really well. An example they give is Laura being able to smell a Subway nearby despite not seeing it, it was around the corner
Having your own written style is also important. Although its not all about how your audience reads it, its also about what state of mind a persons in while reading it too
Sarah often gets clients with a "desire descrepency" (how they want their brand to be vs how it actually is), she says that this often happens because of how the brand is marketed. She says "It's important to elevate every single area and doing that with every detail"
While listening to this I realised I accidentally neglected thinking about my brand as much as I really should have. Because of this I've learnt that it'd be better to go with emotional marketing rather than logical, as emotional is more likely to connect with my audience. While I do want my brand to feel safe, I also want it to be a hub for creativity, success and a bit of education. I realise with my current article topics, while inspiring, do focus a bit too much on other people when the primary target audience of the magazine are young black women starting their career journeys (this isn't necessarily a bad thing as another point of my magazine is to celebrate black women and inspire them, but there's not enough in the magazine that could help them with their career journey which is something I'll have to change). When making a moodboard for my pitch, instead of just focusing on the visuals I'll also try to incorporate other senses such as audio. A lot of this also helps me with writing my articles as knowing my audience and writing in a way that satisfies their needs will also be important for that too
I also got a response back from Charlotte Dixon, another luxury copywriter
They have similar advice to the other copywriters (connecting with audience & selling the dream rather than the actual features). One tip they have is to make the product seem exclusive so that it feels special and luxurious. They pointed out how price tags aren't often featured in premium adverts but instead are "price on demand". Premium ads should feel conceptual, refined and smart
They also mention a few ideas I could include for articles such as including celebrities and high-flyers. When talking about social/culture its more common to focus on galleries and theatre rather than pop culture. When it comes to referencing, I should go to relevant media such as Harpers Bazaar or the Financial Times over the Daily Mail
I hadn't noticed how premium advertisements didn't have a price tag, when creating adverts to put in my magazine instead of putting a price tag on it I'll instead put "price on demand". When it comes to articles, I already plan on talking about a 'celebrity' (Oscars) and I'll be interviewing two women who I'd consider to be 'high-flyers'. Writing for luxury magazines as a whole seems to promote describing the fantasy of having something rather than its actual benefits
Instagram. (2023) Luxury Brand Designer & Creative. Accessed at: https://www.instagram.com/sarahshuttle/. Accessed at: 27.03.23
Instagram. (2023) Luxury SEO Copywriter, Marketer and Branding Expert (@hyb_luxury_marketing). Available at: https://www.instagram.com/hyb_luxury_marketing/. Accessed at: 27.03.23
Pitch Preparation
The first pitch I ever did was for radio production, but I did do a presentation for my interactive magazine. My main issue with my presentation was that there was too much information on the slides and that I was looking at the slides rather than at the audience. Another criticism I got was that I was too quiet. As I continued doing more pitches I got better at not putting so much on my slides and faced the audience more often
Making cue cards helped a lot with what to say and made my pitches flow better overall, so I'll be making cue cards for this pitch as well. I prefer writing shorter notes since they're faster for me to read on the spot
The only complaint I had for my previous FMP's pitch was that there were a few details I missed (such as how many pages the magazine was going to have). For starters I'll make sure to include how many pages the magazine is likely to have, but I'll also constantly check my slides and cue cards so that they contain important and relevant details
I took part in a rehearsal before Live TV's pitch and it helped a lot, prior to that the only rehearsal I did for my pitches was time myself on how long it took to say everything. I'll be doing a rehearsal prior to my pitch as it should help a lot with catching errors (not looking at audience, being too quiet, body language) and properly preparing myself for my actual pitch
I also decided to create a colour palette to stick with for my pitch and likely for the rest of my magazine. This follows what luxury magazines do (white, black & accent colour - #FFF, #000, #BE9FD1). The accent colour isn't neutral like some luxury magazines are, but I made the purple more pastel to compensate for that
Daily Diary 28/03
Today I solely worked on my pitch and my presentation
I feel confident enough about my pitch, I'm more worried about something out of my control happening (like during the specialist unit when my voice kept wavering). When it comes to pitching sometimes what happens is that I forget what to say, but since this is my project and I know what I've currently done for it, I doubt I'll have this issue. I'll also be writing cue cards to support me. I'll have to time myself with how long my pitch may be though as I only have 20 minutes and I'm not sure if I'll accidentally run over that time
Pitch
Pitch Video
wix doesn't allow videos over 10 minutes
Cue Cards
Pitch Evaluation
I think I did fine in my pitch, some of my feedback said that the pitch was well paced and detailed. I was very thorough with my presentation so they didn't have many questions for me, but I answered the questions well. Considering how many slides I had and how much I had to talk, I felt like I did pretty well. I had to read from my cue cards for some details (the framework from the copywriters feedback), but other than a few instances I tried to keep eye contact with the audience as best as I could
Compared to my other pitches, I think I did well on this one but could have done better. I stuttered and stumbled through my words a fair bit during the pitch and my pile of cue cards were on the wrong side (they're double sided). This is definitely the most thorough and detailed pitch I have presented, which meant I had to speak a lot more. I brought a water bottle with me so I wouldn't be as dehydrated, but I didn't want to interrupt the pacing of the presentation so I didn't end up drinking it much
One of the concerns I got was about the primary target audience not being able to afford the magazine (the adverts and products in it). It's a valid concern, especially since they'll just be starting their careers, so I'll be changing my target audience (likely swapping primary and secondary around). This means that some of my article ideas such as CV/interview advice might not be as helpful to the new audience. Another problem they said was about the name of the magazine, it was hard to pronounce and didn't really roll off the tongue well. That's not good for a magazine title so I'll also be changing that too, I'll be going back to luxury magazine/brand names and think of a new title. They also said that I should contact Bute Street Film Festival to try and get Akua & Gabrielle for a one-to-one interview, I'll write an email to them when I get home
Daily Diary 29/03
Today I did my pitch and its evaluation. I'll be writing an email to Bute Street Film Festival to ask if I could have a one-to-one interview with Akua and Gabrielle, I was originally planning to try and ask them after their talk conference but I realised that might not be such a good idea
I think it went fine, I felt confident about my pitch yesterday but I'm worried it wasn't really shown during my actual pitch. Whenever I do pitches I sometimes stutter and I'm not sure how to get rid of doing that. I also should've double checked the order of my cue cards since they were all facing the wrong way when I was reading them out in the pitch
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