Textual Analysis- Dazed Magazine

1. Textual Analysis- Dazed Magazine Olivia Turner

2. Dazed Magazine ‘Dazed’ magazine, previously known as ‘Dazed and confused magazine is a bi-monthly British style, London based magazine. It was founded in 1991 by Hack and Rankin Waddell. It covers topics like music, fashion, film, art and literature. Dazed is published and independent media group, Dazed Media, producing stories across its print, digital and video brands Here is the ‘Dazed’ Magazine cover I will be analysing for my research. I chose to analyse Dazed because I personally like the aesthetic of the magazine and want to incorporate elements of this in my product.

3. Layout The layout of this magazine follows most codes and conventions of a fashion magazine – it has a prominent masthead, with the date of issue printed smaller underneath. This masthead is the same through each magazine, which anchors the house style of the magazine and creates a strong, iconic brand identity for Dazed Media. It also features one celebrity in the centre of the magazine, Bill Skarsgard , which is endorsement of fans and very effective in terms of engaging the audience, and broadening the audience to fans of Bill Skarsgard .

4. Typography In terms of typography, Dazed follows codes and conventions of a magazine by keeping the same font for their masthead in every issue. They also include different typography in the cover lines, which compliment the masthead – another convention I have found to be common in my research. However, this issue goes against codes and conventions regarding layout as it has only one cover line “Bill Skasgard – Don’t Look Now”. This is unusual for a magazine as there is little cover lines to engage the reader, however this minimalistic approach is part of Dazed’s brand identity and has become quite iconic to them as a brand.

5. Language This issue adheres to codes and conventions by having one model, central, and making eye contact with the camera. This direct mode of address is quite effective as it engages the audience on a personal level, which is going to make them more likely to purchase the product, especially the fans of Skarsgard . Skarsgard also holds a moody expression, angry almost. Although this is somewhat uncommon for endorsement – it fits his aesthetic as a celebrity, especially after being cast to play a killer clown in ‘It’. This will adhere to Skarsgard’s brand identity and engage the consumer on a stronger level.

6. Images In terms of images, Dazed uses a bright and bold colour palette, that although has many contrasting colours, fits really well and gives a strong, pleasing aesthetic to this issue. This is also part of Dazed’s brand identity, to use bold colours, therefore this issue anchors the house style of the magazine. Speaking aesthetically, the bold colours are also quite eye-catching and will help engage the audience in terms of standing out against the other magazines. The use of monster-like hands as props also is unusual for a fashion magazine, however fits in really well with Skarsgard’s brand identity, having recently been cast as the lead in a horror film. He is known for being attractive in a haunting way – and the claws anchor this as they connote the presence supernatural beings.

7. Dazed and Confused Online This is a screenshot of the website of Dazed Magazine. I will be analysing the website as a whole and would like to include some elements of this website in my digital one

8. Layout The layout of this magazine website adheres to most codes and conventions of an online magazine. It features a main article about Jaden Smith, using his picture to endorse fans. To the side of this, there are smaller images with linked articles to other news stories that feature less popular personnel like ‘activists’. The subheadings to these are to-the-point and easy to digest, so the audience can easily be entices by them. There is also an advert to a ‘Beats’ speaker – which would link with the music element of Dazed, and engage that side of the audience. Below this there are more articles to do with Art and Lifestyle – another feature in Dazed’s brand identity In terms of layout, website is simplistic and easy to digest – which is common for a fashion magazine, and effective in the sense that audiences can be easily engaged, and not overloaded with content.

9. Navigation In the top left there is a menu bar for the magazine, which when clicked on gives more links to other subcategories of the magazine. This is really effective in terms of engagement because it allows the audience to select the category that relates to them, but also allows them to discover other categories that interest them. This also emphasizes the brand identity because it anchors what the brand is about, and also links to different outlets that the audience will be interested in, like ‘Dazed 100’. In terms of codes and conventions, it is unusual for a fashion magazine to have a ‘politics’ category, however this gives Dazed a USP and also broadens the reach of their audience by including more categories.

10. Language As with the front cover, Jaden Smith is using a direct mode of address to personally engage the audience, which makes them more likely to endorse him. The language of the subheadings and captions is simplistic and to-the-point. This follows codes and conventions of a website as it allows the audience to easily digest the articles. It also includes a lot of platforms for the audience, such as a subscribe option, and links to the brand’s social media. This strengthens the brand identity because it allows audiences to reach the brand on many different media platforms. In my research I have found that most magazine websites follow this convention.

11. Use of images/audio/text/video Dazed website uses images to entice the audience into reading the articles. In this example it is of a celebrity (Jaden Smith) and iconic images (Banksy) and somewhat shocking images (model with no eyebrows). These images are not typical fashion statements, which relates to the brand identity of Dazed being an artsy, indie magazine that focuses on more that just fashion. This would engage the target audience because they would be more politically and culturally sophisticated. They give a sense of deeper meaning to the brand.

12. My Response Researching this magazine, I have found elements I wish to include in my product, and some I would wish to disregard. I found the bold, statement images for the front cover very effective and would like to include this in my product. I also like the minimalism of the cover lines and the simplicity of the website. I like the artsy, more cultural side of the content, however I won’t include a ‘politics’ subcategory because I would like the focus of my magazine to be more on fashion and art and celebrities rather than more controversial topics as I feel this would strengthen the popularity of my brand.