The National Geographic Magazine

Origins

The national geographic that was formerly known as the National Geographic magazine. Was an official journal that was first published in the year 1888, this was 8 months after the formation of the National geographic Society (NGS) that was founded approximately 123 years ago. The magazine was first published by the National geographic Society with its headquarters base in Washington DC in the United States of America (Poole, 46). The magazine was a brain child of the National Geographic Society that is amongst some of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world today.

The National Geographic Society is an institution that has major based its interests in the fields of Geography, Natural Science and Archeology, with the aim of promoting Environmental and Historical conservation it also studies the different Cultural practices and history of the world. The magazine is published in monthly basis in that it has 12 monthly publications of the national geographic magazine in a span of one year, and in a year the magazine offers additions issues to its readers this includes map supplements and special editions in some cases.

The overall management of the magazine is vested to the National Geographic Society Executive Vice President who is in charge of the magazine group Declan Moore, Mr. Moore is in charged of the magazine and reports the progress of the magazine the society new President of the national geographic society Tim Kelly.

Changes over time

The magazine is mostly noted by its unique logo which is a yellow Portrait frame that surrounds the front cover of the and the 1888 issue wasn't the same as last months issue this is a clear indication that the magazine is undergoing radical changes in order to fit into the market and at the same time increase its circulation in the world market.

The changes that the magazine has gone through in order to fit in today's transforming print media market, (Alex, par 5) this is because of an increasing numbers of magazines that are major publishing sensational and human interest stories this making it hard for the magazine to march the competition standard that is used by these magazines (Hawkins, 230). In order for the National Geographic magazine to sustain itself in the evolving magazine world it has made some changes these includes changes on the cover page, the content pages and the page design (Rothenberg, 127).

The magazine's cover page has slightly been a changed with the yellow portrait frame still being intact as the 1888's issue, (Alex par 3) this yellow portrait frame is said to be the color that identifies the magazine to its readers as they can easily identify it as it constantly has the yellow portrait frame that acts as the magazine market brand, the yellow portrait frames thickness has been restructured in order for it to fit into the changing markets demands, a comparison of the difference on the cover page is the 2009's edition and the 2010's edition with the latest edition of the having the name of the organization and trade mark printed at the bottom of the pages, that is on the lower side of the yellow frame, with the date and issue number of the magazine included on the cover page. The main picture on the cover page is also published and the design name of the publisher is placed to a form that the name of the magazine doesn't destruct the picture as the name of the magazine is encrypted by the picture (Poole, 2006).

The content pages of the National Geographic magazine has changed over the years this is when the earlier versions of the magazines only used a specific font size that was mostly used in that day and age the 2009's issue had each articles page numbers appearing on the cover, thus making it easier for the reader to decide on the article they'll want to read first, while in the new issues the 2010's issues the article page numbers have been italicized, creating a mixed use of title fonts making the issue to be more interesting to the reader as it has a mixture of fonts used in the magazines' cover page and at the same time combining a variety of numbers ranging from black , red and white colors in the pages.

The page design is another change that was in the magazine, some of the major changes in the page design; this included the use of different typography, new editorial skills. An example of the changed typography is when the editors introduced stories with mixed fonts, italicized fonts and colors. The editor also used centered alignments in the page designs of the magazine in that they highlighted the most important part of the picture as a way of concentrating the reader into the story thus making it easy for the reader to understand the story published (Steet, 112).

Typical Subject Matter

The magazine has majored in publishing storied in the field of environment, deforestation, global warming, highlighting the problems faced by the endangered species, chemical pollutions amongst other stories in the field of history and environments conservation (Rothenberg, 131). The magazine has stories that provide the reader with the historical uses of products such as metals and agricultural products; it also highlights on archeological and scientific discoveries.

Intended Audience

The intended audiences of this magazine includes the scientists, farmers, environmental conservation experts, science students, tourists and the entire general public, this is because the magazine has deep information about the historical and scientific discoveries in the entire world therefore helping the people living in the areas that are with the endangered species and tourist attraction sites to conserve the places (Catherine and Collins, 5).

Position and/or goals (aside from selling magazines)

The magazine has the objective of making the audience to be well aware of the surrounding environment they are living in; the magazine also promotes tourism as there are various scientific and historical discoveries being published in the magazine. It also facilitates the people to conserve the environment in order to save the endangered species of plants and animals, and the magazine has achieved its goals in the environmental conservation.