Media timeline Steph Webb

Magazines

Types of magazines

• Consumer: Magazines targeting general reading audiences who are sections of the general public with individual/specific interests.

• Trade and Professional: Magazines targeting people working in trades, businesses and professional fields.

• House Organ: Published by for-profit and not-for-profit organizations such as companies, special interest groups for their customers, employees, clients and members.

Types of circulation

• Paid circulation: The magazine is sold to readers for a price, either on a per-issue basis or by subscription, where an annual fee is paid and issues are sent by mail to readers.

• Free circulation: There is no cover price and issues are given away.

• Controlled circulation: Usually industry-based publications distributed only to qualifying readers, often for free and determined by some form of survey – this was the most popular use of circulation prior to the development of the web 2.0.

First magazines• 1663 – World’s first magazine published in Germany. It was

called ‘Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen’.

• 1731 - The first modern general-interest magazine, ’The Gentleman's Magazine’ was published in England.

• 1770 - The first women's magazine, The Lady's Magazine was published.

• 1896 - The first pulp fiction magazines are printed on cheap wood pulp paper with ragged untrimmed edges.

• 1923 – ‘Time’ - the first U.S. newsmagazine, is started by Henry Luce.

• 1933 - ’Esquire’ is the first men's magazine.

• 1944 - Seventeen is the first magazine devoted to adolescents.

Empire magazine• First issue was released in June/July 1989.

• It is the biggest selling film magazine in the United Kingdom and is also published in the United States, Australia, Turkey, Russia and Portugal.

• There are currently 304 issues of Empire magazine (October 2014), It continues to release film information and issues as it grows even bigger.

• Empire magazine can also be viewed online onTheir website. Empire magazine features movie news, reviews, interviews with casts and more including future films to be released.

Posters

Evolution and development of the poster

• The earliest posters are most reminiscent of enlarged newspaper ads with text and, very occasionally, illustrations set in columns. According to some sources, the first printed bill was posted in England in 1477 by a gentleman named William Caxton.

• The claim may be open to debate, since the poster’s job of communicating a message is surely as old as the art of printing.

• The Poster was one of the earliest forms of advertisement and began to develop as a medium for visual communication in the early 19th century.

• The poster quickly spread around the world and became a staple of the graphic design trade.

• They were used to promote various political parties, recruit soldiers, advertise products and spread ideas to the general public.

• Even with the popularity of the internet posters are still being created every single day for all sorts of reasons.

Birth of the poster

• 1798 - Lithography was invented. It was at first too slow and expensive for poster production. Most posters were woodblocks or metal engravings with little colour or design.

• This all changed with Cheret’s "three stone lithographic process," a breakthrough which allowed artists to

achieve every colour in the rainbow with as little as three stones.

• Starting in the 1870s in Paris, it became the dominant means of mass communication in the rapidly growing cities of Europe and America.

Helping out• 1914 – It was highly difficult to encourage men to sign

up into the army due to the increase of casualties. Posters were created to inspire or ‘shame’ men into signing up.

• 1914 – Alfred Leete’s image of England’s secretary of State for War was designed to be pointing at the person reading it.

• 1917 – James Montgomery Flagg’s magazine cover of Uncle Sam was circulated on 4 million posters.

• WW2 – Women were portrayed by J Howard Miller as ‘strong and capable’.

The Message And The Art• Posters are extraordinarily clear reflections of the values, trends, and important

events of their time.

• Advertising posters play a significant role here with their manipulative presentations of the messages.

• Text and pictures are carriers of the message.

• The picture illustrates the text. The interaction in the graphic expression between picture and text is what many believe in the modern sense is the unique characteristic of the poster.

• The poster provides an opportunity to appeal to the viewer’s imagination and emotions.

• It must grab attention fast and make an instant impression, and the picture is by far the fastest method.

First movie poster?

• It is generally thought that the first movie poster was created in 1890 by French painter and lithographer Jules Cheret for a short film called “Projections Artistiques”.

Film/movie posters

• Before 1940, each film studio maintained its own offices (or exchange) in every major city. The studios would send the films and their posters to all the exchanges and from there, they would be distributed to the surrounding theatres. The big city theatres would just go to the exchange and pick up the films and posters right before they would show them.

• Window cards (14" x 22") were bought in large quantities by an individual theatre and (after they added their name and play dates to the top) distributed to store windows around town. Those were given away after the film was done playing. Another way they survive is in the backs of old picture frames, for framers would often use window cards (obtainable for free) as backing boards.

• From the mid 1920’s through the 1940’s, movie studios developed their own artwork styles for their movie posters and hired well-known artists and illustrators.

• Very few film posters survived the years of the Great Depression and World War Two. It is estimated that less than 20 copies of most film posters that were produced between 1930 – 1945 exist today.

• Up until the mid 1980’s, the National Screen Service (NSS) printed and distributed almost all movie posters and related advertising material for the film studios. The evolution of multi-screen cinemas meant that studios could cut back on distribution and the need for production and distribution by the NSS was eliminated.

Film posters today• Today, collecting film posters is a popular hobby and studios typically print extra

posters for the collector’s market. Old and rare posters are extremely valuable and many are auctioned off for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

• As the modern costs of printing rises, many studios are choosing to promote their films online and through television. As well, many theatres are going digital and replacing traditional back-lit poster frames with video screens that can display the film poster with very little effort.

• Posters are still seen frequently. They are used purely for advertising and grabbing the attention of the target audience.

• Nowadays it is a lot cheaper for companies/individuals to produce a poster. There are more ways in which they can be designed i.e. by a computer. It is also less time-consuming yet still works effectively.

• They’re seen in the majority of places and are placed in areas in which thetarget audiences would commonly be seen i.e. cinemas or on the streets(bus stops, shop windows etc).