Change Your Mind, Choose Your Mood

Change your mind, choose your mood

Magazines, members of the print media family, have entered the twenty-first century in a state of confusion. Although they are still very much ink on paper products, magazines also reaches people on websites, they are exclusively available in digital form on the internet. At the same time, magazine format, which information organized by topic and theme in an entertaining manner, has been borrowed by television. Thus the magazine is a media product, a medium of communication, and a communication format. Understanding what magazines are and how they have evolved from their beginnings is one of the vital things in understanding what they are today.

Many people nowadays ask the question: what differentiates a magazine from a newspaper? Actually it is a necessary question, since in contemporary publishing it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the two. Generally, a magazine is a published less frequently than a newspaper. It is also manufactured in a different format; usually on better quality paper, bound rather than merely folded, and with some kind of cover.

Magazines today then retain their traditional functions. They are a major medium of surveillance, often delivering information ahead of the rest of the media. Some magazines like Time, are intended mainly to inform and others like Playboy, to entertain. However, among the various functions served by magazines in contemporary society, the most notable is still correlation. This refers to interpreting society and its parts, projecting trends, and explaining the meaning of the news by bringing together fragmented facts. The magazine from which we will be discussing an advertisement is categorized as a consumer magazine, called SHAPE. Shape has a specific target audience, mainly woman trying to live a healthy life. This magazine has all kinds of articles, including low-calorie recipes, methods of exercising and ways to dress to look fit. The types of advertisements they publish are mostly related to health; beauty, skin, food and many more. While skimming through this magazine, an ad caught my attention. On a white background, starting from the top going vertically; three simple words combine to from the first half of the slogan: "Change your mind" printed in Times new roman, and in black. Slightly beneath it, a color palette make-up case with five circular colors: lime, orange, green, brown and pink. They are in a metal case, with an eye shadow brush (pinceau). Under it, the second half of the slogan, repeatedly using three words in Times new roman, in black ink as