Research - Similar magazine ideas

Magazines that cater more to a LGBTQ+ audience already exist, such as DIVA and Pride, however I want my magazine to target everyone. DIVA, for example, targets primarily wlw (women loving women), whereas magazines like Hello Mr. target more towards mlm (men loving men). This issue of DIVA is fairly simple, showing a lesbian couple on the cover and adopting a pallet with only 3 colours for the text. 

This cover of pride shows Rege-Jean Page. The magazine generally caters towards a queer audience, so while Page is straight, his gentlemanly image is desirable to most. Pride also includes black issues in their intersectional activism, as seen by ‘the mixed race debate grows darker’ which is great to see represented and included on the front page.  

Magazines such as Attitude also cater more towards gay men, as we can see in this front cover Glow Up special. Their cover focuses more on the main picture than the content, as they don’t want to cover the model. Their colours are also limited to two, matching their brand identity. 

Video game timeline 2015-2020

 

Research - masthead ideas

 I want to explore representations and really play around with gender identity as a malleable concept. 

Initial ideas and phrases: 

• against the grain
• against norms
• gradient
• spectrum 
• fluidity
• androgyny 

Both gender and sexuality can be described as a spectrum, so I think that it could be a good name for my magazine. 'Across the spectrum' could be a tagline or used for a call to action. The gender spectrum visualizes gender as a continuum stretching from men to women and masculine to feminine. Gender identities other than man or woman are considered to be non-binary. 

I could use something like these for my logo, and choose one of the colours to use for my main theme and masthead. I am thinking of using the colour green as it isn't as commercially gendered as red, pink, blue, purple etc. 

An example of a gay magazine is DIVA, their main colour is purple and is mostly catered towards WLW and non-binary people. They use the space next to their name to showcase that edition's main focus - in this case lesbian visibility week.