Archive for January 17th, 2010
Why Do We Read Magazines?
January 17th, 2010 | 
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In a world of instant information it would seem that the sale of magazines would be obsolete. After all, why purchase a periodical when you can have information texted to you with lightening speed. Why take the time to leaf through the pages of a magazine when you can look up online, anything you could possibly ever want to know. While the spread of electronic knowledge and information is on the rise it doesn’t seem to put a damper on the purchase of Magazine subscriptions. There is something about the feel of the pages between your finger tips that a computer screen just can’t duplicate. There is an indescribable joy in the luxury of words that can be spent on the pages of a magazine but tend to be lost on a Blackberry. Women will always enjoy the pleasure of paging through their favorite celebrity gossip magazine while under the dryer at the beauty shop just as many men enjoy catching up on the sporting or financial news while commuting on public transportation. There is just something rich and real about reading a magazine that supersedes the ease of information from electronic sources. The history of the magazine dates all the way back to the 1700’s when the aristocracy read periodicals that contained news of parliament, book lists and reviews, and social and political essays written by the foremost thinkers of the time. Only the rich could afford to purchase magazines and only the few educated people of the time had the skills to read them. By the 1830’s magazines were much less expensive and therefore available to the masses. Because they had a different target as their audience, popular themes for magazines included self improvement and personal enlightenment. After a while publishers began to realize that many people would buy magazines for their entertainment value and started printing interesting news stories and serializing horror, romance and fiction novels. During the late 1800’s improvements to magazines came about through the process of better printing techniques. In 1870, printers experimented with better uses of color and were soon able to print adequate reproductions of famous paintings, so that the masses could enjoy what had been restricted to the upper classes for so long. In 1880 tremendous advances in the art of photography were made and soon it was possible for magazines to contain photographs. This opened people up to the things of the world they had never seen before. When publishers combined printed text with photographs, merchants saw the possibilities and suddenly the advertisements sections in magazines grew. What better way to sell a product than to have a description and a true to life photograph in your ad? With the turn of the century came better education. As more and more people were able to receive at least some form of education, more people were able to read and the demand for magazines grew in leaps and bounds. By the thirties, advertising in magazines hit a high mark, showing that the popularity of the medium had grown extensively. Soon publishers began to find niche markets from which to create unique magazines. Out of this movement grew the vast variety of specialty magazines available on the market today. For any hobby you can think of, there is at least one magazine dedicated to the pursuit of that form of entertainment. There are trade magazines geared toward just about every industry in existence. There are magazines geared for the interest of every age group, special interest group, and even many clubs and organizations. The popularity of magazines is sustained because you can pick up a magazine at anytime and browse through it. Then you can put it back and come right back to where you left off. They are entertaining and informative, and great for casual readers who are looking for a pleasant way to pass the time while being entertained and picking up a little useful information.
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How Fashion Houses And Designers Can Use Websites
A quick search online will reveal that many of the major fashion houses not only have websites, but use them in creative ways. Fashion is an industry built on fantasy, to a great degree. Those fantasies are constructed in glossy magazines oriented to professionals in general (Vanity Fair) and to women who follow the trends (Elle). The online experience is a multidimensional tool to expand on designer fashions and the yearly line of products. Gucci has a website that rivals some of the major car makers for quality, use of multimedia and focus. You can choose from sites oriented to several different continents. One of the intriguing features of the Gucci site is its frame-by-frame layout of their current ad campaign. The value of the advertising in keeping Gucci “current” is made evident by its prominence as a website feature. Some fashion websites that you wouldn’t expect to see doing it are retailing to the public directly from their websites. There’s a corporate area for promotional materials and haute couture, and a retail section for deals on the latest products. Companies that engage in online retail include Dior, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein – not a great surprise – along with Versace; Armani; Giancarlo Ferre and Prada, companies that you wouldn’t expect to see retailing on the web. A well developed website can take the designs showcased in model photography and on the runways and present them in a manner that makes them much more accessible to women other than twenty-something anorexics. Visual tools can be used to rotate a dress, suit, jacket or pair of pants 360 degrees. Short video pieces can show a garment and provide voice-over describing its practicality, range of use, glamour or whatever factor the company wants to highlight. Web searches on fashion turn up a large selection of generic fashion sites that gain their revenue from advertising. One of their principal content highlights is always a list of designer web sites. In one case, apparelsearch.com, the site lists fashion designers and design houses in three categories: website for corporate information, for retail opportunity, and for wholesale connections. That is valuable, down-to-the-rack-sale advertising for even the most well established houses. And it’s free. Fashion designers that cater to men, women and children can lay out their product lines for “the entire family” in one location – something that is difficult if not impossible using the magazine format. At best, the marketer would be buying ads in three different print genres. The web also allows fashion houses to segment in other ways. Click on Donna Karen and you’ll find a web site that offers her accessory line up. Try DKNY and you’ll find clothing. Designers use the web in many functional mixtures. Fendi has an area for media inquiries that includes press releases and photos. It has an e-shopping area (U.S. only) for accessories. For the rest, there is a list of their boutiques in the United States. And there is an absolutely incomprehensible video with a maddening electronica overdub that will not stop repeating itself and drive you crazy, just like alongside the runway. Armani has a full-blown merchandising area, along with a list of its retail site in the country. You can order the items you don’t need to try on, and find out where to try on the items that require a fitting check.
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Tags: desingers, fashion, fashion houses, Information, online, vps hosting, website hosting, websites | 
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