Peer Pitch and Concept Refinement Chart

 

CATEGORY	DETAILS
Film OR Magazine	Magazine
Genre	Special Interest
Target Audience (Be specific)	Readers/Intellectual people/ Older people/ Wealthy/ cultured (Men and women)
What is your concept? (Be thorough & specific. Review the links on Blackboard)	The front cover will be much like the New Yorker with a snappy piece of artwork.  It will feature a man reading the newspaper with coffee next to him and a woman reading a book with a drink as well.  I will have the title- as the masthead.  Unlike the New Yorker and several other literary magazines, there will be some other information like feature articles and a selling line on the cover as well.  The main article will be “The Art of Savoring the Moment” (title subject to change) and will be about taking the time to enjoy small activities like the one pictured and how this plays out in different cultures (i.e. Westerners/Americans have little time for such, but in other cultures it is very important.  Discuss how in countries like France it takes hours to eat a meal- contrast with fast food).  Feature articles will be about food, books, and places centered around the theme of living in the moment and taking time to reflect and unwind,
How did you conceive the idea for this concept?	I knew I wanted to go the intellectual or literary route, but many more ideas came to me.  It was in part sparked by my personal experience with the difference in other cultures’ enjoyment of food and life.  But I also recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who mentioned that she envied the people she sees at places like Starbucks who actually sit down there to enjoy their coffee for a while with the newspaper.
What do you believe is unique about your concept?	These types of magazines are already rarer, but mine brings a unique perspective into literary and cultural ideas.  As a young person what I bring to these topics is different and combines the new and old.  I think it is sophisticated but not boring.
Why do you believe this product will be of interest to your audience?	I think it will be stimulating and challenge them a bit while also being enjoyable to look at and read.
FEEDBACK RECEIVED FROM PEERS	I need to narrow down my concept to have a more specific vision for the magazine as a whole rather than one specific issue.  I want it to be focused on cultures around the world, so I will change the title to ‘Culture Couture’ or along similar lines.  It will include food, fashion, destinations, and literature. While this is still broad, I am keeping it that way as it is a lifestyle magazine and they generally cover a wider range of topics.  The target audience is intellectuals, particularly younger people as I am young and that is the voice projected.  Each issue would simply have its own theme which would be applied to each area of the magazine.  For example, besides the issue idea I gave above, I could do one on Christmas/ Holidays around the world in December, and it would be easy to find content for Christmas food, literature, etc.  The theme could be about flowers in spring, including poetry about it for the literature section, spring fashion, and an article pertaining to the mental benefits of gardening or plants.  This makes it so that the magazine always has a message of self- improvement for intellectual people who care about learning and bettering themselves.

    I had trouble putting my idea down in words and relating it to the class.  I do not feel like my concept was fully understood as I did not know how to express it.  Some of my peers asked me very important questions that helped guide my thinking further and guided me to be more practical in my approach.  I had to learn to be both more specific in the type of magazine as well as think of it more broadly in thinking of more content for issues.  I realized that while my magazine was for enjoyment, most of what I was putting in was positive reinforcement in readers' lives and a message of self-improvement.  I learned how to incorporate this into a variety of issues and across each piece of content (book review, the article, a poem, fashion, food, etc.).  Since it focuses on global cultures, this positive message of improvement can be applied to many locations, that is not just Americans, for example.  As for genre, I classify it as a literary and cultural journal.

    I think possibly the most important aspect of a magazine is for it to be visually/aesthetically appealing.    With the subject matter and sophistication I want to represent, I think it will be easy to find ways to be pleasing and appeal to people’s senses.  With magazine as my medium, it is obvious that it is necessary to be creative and as innovative as possible.  One of the data articles I reviewed lays this out in addition to digital methods.  Popular Science attributes its rise in sales as so: “Popular Science rejuvenated its content strategy and business model by cutting its frequency from monthly to quarterly while raising subscription rates. The magazine also chose to use a better-quality paper stock and focused on enhancing visual content.”  While not all that was discussed in these articles can apply to my project, I learned about the crucialness of visual presentation.  My idea was also guided by data analysis “The key,” writes Lobb, “is understanding how customers want to engage with the publication, and then making it as simple as possible to do so.”  My magazine will be helped by its ability to engage with the audience.  This includes how each piece is centered around a specific theme (spring/flowers, coffee, etc.). I will include a crossword/ puzzle in addition to the fictional stories which lend it a more interactive and engaging experience. 

          Another piece that influenced the refinement of my project was from the article “The Abundance, Joy, Beauty, Persistence, Power, and Potential of Independent Publishing: A Conversation With Six Black Editors” by Camille Dungy, which stated “...those of us fortunate enough to have trained ourselves in ways that defy the myopia and privilege of a singular aesthetic--those of us, that is, who have taken advantage of the benefits of a postcolonial and anti-colonial sensibility that demands knowing the oppressive cultural and political forces that have denied the cultural power of the oppressed, as well as knowing the cultural power of the oppressed--are the ones who are burdened with the task of shifting things in our literary world”.  This has a lot to unpack, but it spoke to me in its statement on the significance of cultural appreciation and representation.  It also talks of the power of various groups.