Indesign Class Activity

Today in class we utilized adobe indesign to lay out our 2 page spread. Definitely Indesign seemed hard to use but after an introduction course, it became much easier to use. It definitely creates a much easier process for re-designing my article.
For revisions i made a few text based changes through my original software but after that the vast majority of cosmetic changes were all through Indesign.

Audience Engagement Research-Cooking Light

How My Audience Is Similar: Cooking Light appeals to a moderately broad audience. Their media kit shows that their primary audience has a median HHI of around $80,000 They also appeal more to families without children in them.

How They Market: Cooking light uses one of the more common forms of audience engagement nowadays. Social media. In this case, Cooking Light uses an Instagram page to highlight meals and advertise their content to a larger audience. Announcing the latest issues, giving additional pictures of the dishes and overall letting fans interact more with the company are all the results of this technology. They also offer a way for their fans to send recipes to them under the premise that they may be featured, incentivizing audience engagement.



Their Website also offers an online shop where they can buy the various cooking products advertised through their magazine, this ranges from Knifes to Pots to Pans. The shop also offers some snack foods and fully cooked meals people can buy, including corn chips and whole steak dishes.



Their Site also allows for another engagement form. Their meal program. By subscribing through a $1.52 per week fee, the company provides a full meal plan to the user. This works with the magazines theme of health food and dieting.
These services are a good way for cooking light to draw in new users to their services and through those services they hope they can get them to buy or subscribe to other offers available.






Finally Cooking Light offers book sales to further the chances of being found by shoppers. Books give them a way into book stores, letting them reach some areas that are less likely to feature just magazines.

Audience Engagement Research-The Cook's Cook

Similar Audience: The Cook's Cook has a closer male/female ratio that i would be trying to reach. The magazine has an age range thats closer to what i would like to be at but is a bit older than my main aim.


The Cook's Cook has an interesting idea. They have a community forum where fans can submit their own dishes and discuss current food ideas. This community engagement is a good way to draw in fans but also keep them interested. Allowing for them to interact with photo submissions is a way to add another level of engagement to their community. The idea of using Facebook also works because of their target age, of around the 40-50 range being part of their majority audience.

They also have a smaller youtube channel to attract to a younger audience then would normally be reached by a Facebook group. Here they are able to increase the chances of being seen by a much larger number of people.

The Cook's Cook has also been able to gain a lot of publicity through the newspaper, "The Guardian". This paper has ran numerous articles about Chef's associated with the magazine.

Target Audience Research

Using Data from Food Network Magazine, The Cook's Cook and Cooking Light, there are a few conclusions to reach. First is that the majority of people buying these magazines are in their 40s with an HHI of around 80k per year. My magazine is trying to reach a bit younger of an age area then current magazines are trying to reach. Many of the mainstream magazines focus on a family-oriented, large meal making design. My magazine design reaches the age groups missed, the younger 18-30 range and the 55-60 range.
The modernistic design is used to appeal to a younger audience and the simple, easy to understand and easy to access information appeals to an older audience than is traditionally targeted. This design will also hopefully address the disparity between male/female audiences, which for Cooking Light has a significant male to female ratio of 14/84 split. This magazine aims to address interests in a more specific type of cooking. This magazine aims to highlight more unconventional foods found in the US. Foods styles like Malaysian and Burmese are uncommon to find in the United States and this magazine acts as an outlet to let interested cooks try out new flavors.

Audience Engagement Research-Fine Cooking

Similar Audience: Fine cooking has a closer gender split than cooking light to what im trying to achieve. While their median age is a bit older to what than i want to reach of 52, so while i wish to reach a big younger demographic they have some similarities.





Fine Cooking is one of many modern magazines that have opted to have a secondary website to help popularize their magazine. In the case of cooking magazines, these sites operate to host smaller articles and recipes.





The website though is also used to show content unavailable in print media. Some examples of these are Videos and the advertise their TV show "Movable Feast". Their website makes the processes of subscribing also much easier to do, encouraging people to keep spending their money on their products.






Fine Cooking also uses a Youtube account to show users how to make some of the dishes featured in their issues. With nearly 50 thousand subscribers, this allows them to reach even more users and acts as a secondary income source from Youtube.

Feedback and Revisions

Main Revisions

1. Change the Photo on the Table of Contents.
2. Change a bit of flavor text on the first article page. 
3. Text color edits on the cover to increase visibility.
4.  Edit the photo size on the first article page.
5. Any other quality of life changes.

The Purpose of these changes were to improve the visibility of the content and to improve general aesthetic. 

Blog Conventions

How Does this Magazine Conform to Conventions?
This magazine follows some of the common conventions found in magazines. First is with the cover. True to form, the title is on the top of the cover such as with Good Food magazine and Naked Food. As well as this, the main image is in the center of the cover, but with the majority of the dish to one side of the cover, typically the right, which my cover follows. Afterwords though common conventions are used. The style of the table of contents with its related photo on one side and list on the other is one of the most used conventions. The style of interview also with the italics questions and the standard form answer.
How Does this Magazine not Conform to Conventions?
The magazine does also challenge some conventions. The cover has a much more simplistic and modernistic design which while does appear on some covers, this design is by far less used for the more fuller design. Following the premise of a simple, easy to use magazine and recipe book, each issue should be easy to identify and read through.
Social Groups Represented
Cover highlights Vietnamese foods and the article focuses also on it. Throughout the magazine however, various other groups from around Asia are mentioned. We have Myanmaran, Chinese, Malaysian and Burmese. Because of the interview with Massimiliano Alajmo, Italian food is also highlighted.