Beyond the Veracity: A Semiotics Analysis of Vogue Magazine Cover

An Academic Paper presented to

Dr. Claudette A. Baluran

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course

ENGLISH 240- English in the Media

By:
Mariell I. Paderos
AB English 4B
 Vogue, is an influential American fashion and lifestyle magazine. It was founded in
1892 as a weekly high-society journal, created by Arthur Baldwin Turnure for New York Citys
social elite and covering news of the local social scene, traditions of high society, and social
etiquette; it also reviewed books, plays, and music. Cond Montrose Nast, the founder of Cond
Nast Publications, bought Vogue in 1909 and transformed it into a womens fashion magazine
focused on beauty, composure, and etiquette.

Vogue soon became known for its distinctive photographs and high editorial quality.
Nast hired the best illustrators and photographers of the day, and they produced covers for the
magazine that were consistently sophisticated and occasionally revolutionary. In 1932, for
example, Vogue became one of the first magazines to print a colour photo on its cover. In the
1960s the magazine redefined the look of female models, eschewing shapely figures to
highlight thin, gender-neutral physiques. Vogues August 1974 cover was the first to picture an
African American model.

In 1988 Anna Wintour became editor of Vogue and immediately transformed Vogue
covers by emphasizing the womans body, rather than just her face, as well as by frequently
featuring Hollywood actresses as opposed to traditional fashion models, thereby sparking an
international trend. Wintour also began Teen Vogue (2003) and Mens Vogue (200508) in the
United States. In 2003 she and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) jointly
inaugurated the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, which offered financial support and business
mentoring to the next generation of American fashion designers.

In 2009 the film documentary The September Issuewhich chronicled the production of
the magazines record-breaking 840-page September 2007 issuewas released to critical
acclaim. Later that year Vogue launched Fashions Night Out, a joint global initiative
encouraging people to patronize international designers and retailers during the global financial
crisis; the now annual affair marked the largest shopping event in history.

Vogue has enjoyed international success, with both standard and special editions
published around the globe. One of the worlds most prominent fashion magazines, it has
heavily influenced the development of the fashion magazine industry and continues to shape
modern fashion trends. In 2009 The New York Times christened Vogue high fashions bible.

Semiotic derives from the Greek semesion, meaning sign, semainon which means signifier and
semainomenon meaning signified or indication. Generally, semiotic is the study of signs or an
epistemology about the existence or the actuality of sign in societal life.
Saussure's 'theory of the sign' defined a sign as being made up of the matched pair of
signifier and signified.
Signifier

The signifier is the pointing finger, the word, the sound-image.

A word is simply a jumble of letters. The pointing finger is not the star. It is in the interpretation
of the signifier that meaning is created.

Signified

The signified is the concept, the meaning, the thing indicated by the signifier. It need not be a
'real object' but is some referent to which the signifier refers.

The thing signified is created in the perceiver and is internal to them. Whilst we share concepts,
we do so via signifiers.

Whilst the signifier is more stable, the signified varies between people and contexts.

The signified does stabilize with habit, as the signifier cues thoughts and images.

These signs all stand in for the idea of a tree. But they do so in different ways. We generally
categorize signs into three types:

1) Iconic signs- icons are signs where meaning is based on similarity of appearance. So our
drawing of our tree stands in for the notion of tree based on a crude similarity
appearance.
2) Indexical signs- indexical signs have a cause-and-effect relationship between the sign
and the meaning of the sign. There is a direct link between the two. So a leaf might be
an indexical sign.
3) Symbolic signs- these signs have an arbitrary or conventional link. The word tree, t-r-e-e
only comes to stand in for the notion of tree because of the conventions of our
language. In another convention, the symbolic sign for tree might be arbor (German)
or (Japanese)
Signified:
Signifier:
Pure, clean,
fresh, confident, A beautiful
beauty, carefree, woman wears
and comfortable pink and grey
outfit.

Vogue is a worldwide magazine company who uses famous Model/Actress so that the readers
will find it more interesting to look up what is inside. Vogue magazine uses highly famous star
on the front as the main image. Cara Delevingne is a famous Model/Actress in America; they
really have a great catch because Cara is now the face of teenagers. Cara is a beautiful woman
who signifies youth, health, beauty and very feminine. The colors seem to be exciting; the
buyers must be very excited and curious about this product. It also gives youthful glow, and it
seems favorable to the adults. To the teenagers, I think the color would seem more fun. The
hair of the artist signifies cleanliness or organized in some things. They styled her in pink to tie
in the color scheme of the whole magazine. The whole being of an artist signifies wealth,
beauty and very feminine. So I think this would really be an effective magazine cover picture for
women. Because most women really like the style which is trendy or expensive look
garments/things. And lastly, the beautiful woman in this picture symbolizes youthfulness,
beauty, health and feministic. The color scheme is very effective to catch the attention of the
customers, and since Cara is very famous to most of the teenagers they used color pink as their
color scheme. I think the flowers speak about wildness, beauty and freedom. Vogue always
uses the same font on the masthead and this shall remain effective to all audience and target
market. The color of the masthead however change to fit in with the color scheme which makes
everything look much more organized and professional. The editor has decided to place small
boxes of important information around the front cover to allow the reader to see what is inside
and to make them buy it. The different fonts, font sizes, and font colors make the front cover
really stand out and would definitely catch readers eyes as they pass it in a shop.
Signified: Signifier:

Fresh, confident, A beautiful

beauty, carefree, woman looks
and comfortable seriously with a
messy hair.

The title normally covers part of the image showing the dominance of the title and this draws
the reader to the title through it being the most dominating text. This is the biggest text on the
page and is in bold so that it is further dominating over the rest of the text. This enables the
reader to know and remember the title of the magazine to secure future purchases. The model
is a well known artist, meaning it will attract audiences that recognize her and therefore make
them more willing to buy the issue. As this is an issue that is all about fashion, by using an
artist that is famous help as to further endorse this issue and persuades readers to buy the
magazine. The magazine also shows the price of the issue which is 3.99 and also the date
which is September. This enables the reader to know how much the magazine is, which another
decider of weather to buy the magazine is or not. It is also the smallest piece of text on the
cover, as though the price of the magazine is not a factor that will affect the decision of the
buyer or not. The main cover line is the next biggest piece of text after the title and this shows
that this is a special edition based on fashion which enables to persuade readers who are
interested within fashion. The word BIG is one of the buzzwords found here, this is to further
excite the audience about the magazine. The fact that this issue is exclusive only on fashion
and it may have more content than usual and will further interest readers. The strip shows what
is going to be within the magazine and states the main highlights which is also shown on the
other side, this also enables the readers to receive an understanding of what is within the
magazine and enables them to decide if they want to purchase the issue or not through strip.
The tagline gives the main highlight of the issue which is 460 pages of fashion, style. And
beauty this shows that this magazine issue us based on fashion, style and beauty. As shown at
the bottom of the page The Big Issue in capital letters says that it is all about fashion, style
and beauty making it a special edition, more attractive to customers that are interested in
fashion and beauty and therefore makes it more likely that they will buy this issue.
Signified: Signifier:

Feminine, Youth, A beautiful

Beauty, Wealth, woman wears a
Free, and Wild hat.

Vogue is a fashion magazine that is available in all countries, but they have their own publishes.
It has female target audiences as you probably can tell. The color scheme of this magazine is
blue, red and white, which represents very elegant colors, as vogue is on the pricey side. Red
gives off the seducing, sharp women look whereas white is very calm and elegant. The direct
eye contact of a woman in the picture connotes independence and confidence. The title of
publication is covering the upper part face of the model, but that doesnt matter as you can see
her main features (eyes, lips, face, and outfit). Also, no other words are covering her main
features, and Cara does stand out. She is looking straight at the camera which grabs the
audiences attention. There is a date just to the left of the title however; it is small so that it
doesnt take any attention away. There is no price or barcode on the cover. The magazine has
used direct addressing with words such as your and you so the audience feels more
connected. They also havent used too many fonts as that can look unorganized and less
professional.
Signified: Signifier:

Beauty, wealth, A beautiful, rich

fame and royalty and sexy woman
wearing color
gold dress

I think that this front cover is a great prime example for analysis. This is because there is an
obvious theme of the color gold; the theme of wealth and royalty. Apart from the obvious
masthead my eyes are drawn to the main feature story Fashion Royalty- this statement is
relevant to the image of Cara Delevingne who is dressed as basically: royalty, like a Queen.
The color scheme and what the artist was wearing signifies for wealth and royalty, and of
course everything was gold because the theme of the issue is about royalty.To display her
riches she wore the outstanding earrings and crown. It is also big just to inform everybody that
it really signifies riches. The dress was also cute yet sexy because that is now the new trend,
glamorous and very sexy that would probably be a good image to the millennial. The artists
look was so fierce just to signify strength and power because of wealth. The eyes were looking
straightly just to signify and grab a maximum attention to buy this issue of a magazine. This
links nicely with Caras own feature story Cara Delevingne Crowned Miss Cool- when you think
of the word crowned you think of the Queen, you think of royalty, wealth, and gold. Therefore,
she has cleverly been modeled as being someone of superiority to reinforce the fact of bothe
her feature story, and that of the main feature story too. The way it says The style secrets of
Vogue insiders will also draw the audiences attention to this magazine, this is because Vogue
are trying to grab your attention, trying to persuade you to buy this magazine so that you can
know the inside scoop of the fashion industry- that you can only this information if you buy this
issue of Vogue. That only the insiders can know. As Vogue are of an upper-class institution, I
think this issue and the statement Vogue insiders will entice people who dont normally buy it
or cant afford it. People will be persuaded to buy it just to find out the style secrets so they can
appropriate it to their own lives. Also, the alliteration of Style Secrets roll off your tongue
when spoken, this is an advantage because it stands out more and people will remember it. The
fact that Vogue has added a copy of Caras signature on to the front cover shows that Vogue is
so elite that they can get a hold of a supermodels signature.
Signified: Signifier:

Intimate, Beauty, A beautiful

Confidence, woman wearing
Luxurious, and revealing
Daring clothes.

The magazine only sometimes displays the name of the person on the cover, on this particular
cover only the first name is mentioned in big lettering. The artist used in this cover is somebody
who is popular at the moment so this will attract the audiences and will influence their decision
on purchasing the magazine. The person featured tend to look classy, well dressed and covered
up which is generally what the target audiences would want to use and give them ideas about
how they should dress themselves. Vogue magazine usually uses around 3 different font colors
to compliment the image, they tend to be colors that blend will match the outfit or make up of
the model. They used the brighter colors on the text that is featuring things that are popular at
that moment or just something stereotypical that women are to take interest in having these
certain bits of best highlights and makes you look at it and think about it first, which is more
likely to catch the audiences eye. On this cover certain words are used to suggest that you
should improve yourself and by buying the magazine you will be able to read about how to do
so. This magazine is also a well known magazine that even the artist will cover one letter which
is letter G the audiences will still be able to know what letter was being covered. The topics
that are shown, suggests that the magazine is for an older and mature higher class audiences
How to hold on to your styles is an example of this. The magazine is trying to attract the
audiences to buy this issue so that they will improve themselves and find some ways how by
reading this magazine.
In the discourse of advertising (magazine cover) it can be a wish, a need, a desire or a worry to
be solved, for instance. In this sense, the paper deals with the signified or signifier meanings of
contemporary ads. The approach is based on the assumption that communication is achieved
via decoding and encoding messages. The signified represents the overall message about the
meaning of the product which the ad is creating by the use of the image (the photographed
model). The ad functions by showing us a sign with easily readable mythic meaning (the
photographed model is a sign for feminine beauty) as well as by placing this sign next to
another, potentially ambiguous, sign (the name of the magazine).

Semiotics has a great help in advertising company in terms of promoting their products. People
nowadays are more on visual representation; it helps people to decide what to buy if they see
the product on their two eyes.

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

"Language is, then, positively a distinctly

human opening of and opening to the world:
Not just a distinguishable or instrumental but a
constitutive faculty."
--Raymond Williams
Semiotics, Structuralism and Television--- Seiter

Great advertising executions must tell great

stories with brands as the heroes.
-- Millward Brown
A Creative Commons Textbook.Retrieved from:
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http://changingminds.org/explanations/critical_theory/concepts/signifier_signified.htm

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vogue-American-magazine

Photos retrieved from:

https://www.google.com.ph/search?biw=1440&bih=745&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=vogue+magazine
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