Analysis of existing magazines 2

For the second magazine, i'm going to be analysing the design of Smash Hits magazine. Even though this magazine isn't around anymore, it was very popular at the time.

Front cover I think they have given smash hits as the title of the magazine because its catchy and easy to remember. Also it's very relevant to the genre of the magazine as 'hits' relates to top songs.
Colour
The main colour on the front page thats used is pink. This may indicate to readers that the magazine will be aimed more at females then males. Another thing to suggest this would be the features on the front, i.e '19 red carpet looks you'll love' and 'starts exposed'. These titles would mainly just ctah the eye of the girls. The title is pink yet outlined with white, this makes it stand out from the rest of the text on the page, so you can clearly see what they magazine is called. The colour yellow has been used around the text boxes, i think this has been used as its a very bright, eye-catching colour. It outlines the 4 images used and almost acts like a grid to seperate each picture from eachother and the rest of the text. As the style of music this magazine is promoting is very happy and modern, this colour presents this nicely.
Font
The font used on the front cover is a mixture of sans serif font and serif font. I think they have done this because, the bits that are in the sans serif font are the parts that need to be clearer for the readers. Quite a lot of the text has a white outlining to it, to make it appear bolder and clearer to read. A total of 5 different styles of fonts have been used, this makes the front cover more interesting and a chance for the designer to show off and play around with thses fonts. Sometimes, if too many fonts have been used it can look too messy and too hard to understand. However on the cover of Smash Hits they have used them very effectively and all for different reasons on different parts of text.
Images
All the pictures on the front cover are of celebrities, this shows that this is what the magazine is going to be based around. Also i have noticed that the pictures of celebrities they've chosen aren't hugely known around the globe. Most of them are teen stars. For example, Chantelle Houghton appears on the front cover, she won celebrity big brother and now is described as a celebrity thorugh being on a reality TV show. This show appeals to the target audience of the magazine therefore they are probably more familiar with her rather than someone in the older generation. An image of the singer Preston from the Ordinary Boys is on the cover too, as he is known for his singing in a band, this ties in with the genre of the magazine being pop. This image is also the biggest on the cover, showing that this is going to be one of the main features in the magazine.
Language
There isn't much to comment on about the language used on the front cover as there isnt much text on the cover. One thing however would be that the word 'exposed' is used, by using this word it grabs children's attention and makes them want to read on. If they read that something is exposed about celebrities, it may make the magazine seem more personal to them and like they are finding out something that no one else does. Also the language used is very simple, it needs to be simple because the text needs to get to the ponit, most of the text are like subtitles. A pull-quote is said to grab the reader's attention and make them want to turn to that page to read on about the interview with Preston.

Analysis of existing magazines

My chosen genre of music magazine is Pop. The first magazine i analysed was 'Top of the Pops'. The magazine's target audience is mainly girls aged 9-15. Also maybe children from middle class families because the price is quite expensive, however it is only a monthly issue.
I think they have named the magazine 'Top of the Pops' because the word 'Pop' tells the audience immediately what the genre is of the magazine. And the 'Top of' part means that it is pop at it's best, and that it's going to be about the best pop music. In addition to this, the magazine is a follow up of the TV show Top of the Pops, so it is well-known to its target audience already and becomes catchy.
Front cover- Colour

All the colours are very bright and vibrant. These reflect and appeal to the target audiences tastes by making it fun and giving the magazine a young feel to it, which is what they were aiming to do. The colours used are mainly pinks, blues and yellows, stereotypically these colours represent both genders, for example, pink for girls and blue for boys. Therefore the magazine could possibly be aiming at both boys and girls. The colours are bold, making it easy and clear for readers to understand what is being written. Also some of the main pieces of text have a border of a different colour around them, this makes that piece of text grab people's attention and makes it stand out more than the other pieces of text on the page. Lastly, the colours in the photos on the front tie in with the colour theme of the magazine, i.e Zac Efron is wearing a pink t-shirt and Vannessa Hudgens is wearing a white dress.

Information presented

• Date
• Issue Number
• Bar code
• Price-£2.20
• 88 pages in total

Font
The fonts used on the front cover of the magazine are all fairly similar. Most of them are sans serif, but the others are in a serif typeface. The ones which are in the serif font draw the eye to the next letter in each word and increase the readability to those certain parts of text. Serif font is used for the key bits of writing on the front. A range of both upper case and lower case letters have been used in the text. Upper case lettering has been used in subheadings to draw your attention to it and are mainly used when the text is about a certain person.
Images
The images used are all mainly photographs. The photographs used are of a celebrity which is going to appear in a feature in the magazine. The celebrities used on the front cover all appeal very much to the target audience because most of them are teen stars and therefore gives the audience something to relate to in their teens. Another celebrity's picture used is Leona Lewis' i think she has been chosen as she is so well known for winning the X Factor, the audience that the magazine is aimed at is teenage children and they are more than likely to know her from watching the talent show on television. Text boxes have been used to give the layout some edge and to make the cover look more interesting rather than many blocks of text. Using boxes also helps you navigate information easily and determine which headline goes with what bit.
Language
The language used is rather simple to draw the eye of the reader to want to read on more, therefore buy the magazine to do so. Some examples of words used to do this would be 'star, amazing, exclusive, OMG and sexy' All these words link to a feature in the magazine. By using these words it makes teenagers interested and want to find that story and read on. Quotes are also used on the front page. They do this for the same reason mentioned so that people will want to hear what this celebrity has to say and therefore search for this part in the magazine. The word 'OMG' is very significant to the audience this magazine is aimed at because, it is a phrase which many teenagers will use on a day to day basis via instant messenger, text etc.

Contents page

I have chosen to analyse a contents page from Mizz magazine as Top Of The Pops magazine doesn't have a contents page and Mizz is very similar to TOTP magazine.
Font
The title of the page has been put in a sans serif font and in bold. It has also been put in red against a white background and the boldness and the red makes it stand out. However the title of the page hasn't been made very big and has been put off centre so it isn't very clear where the title is. The rest of the font on the page has also been written using a sans serif font. The writing is small and hard to read but there isn't a mass of text so this makes it easier to read.
Colour
There are many different bright colours on the page. The subtitles of the different sections in the magazine are each highlighted in a different colour. This is very effective as it helps readers determine between each feature in the magazine. The main background colour of the page is white. This makes the other colours seem to stand out more and are bolder. Quite a lot of the colour pink is used on this page, stereotypically aiming it at more of a female audience.
Language
The use of language on this page is more informal than formal. It uses informal language such as 'Caught Out!' and ' Bag a Bargain' to try to communicate with the younger generation. The language used has also got catchy titles that will help stick in people's minds and remember the magazine. The younger audience generally use abbreviations and catchy sayings which is why they have used them for this type of magazine.
Images
The target audience for this magazine is young females based on the pictures, language and colour. Older females wouldn't generally buy a magazine based on the use of bright colour and with pictures of Disney stars on the page. The images on this page are mainly Disney stars from the Disney film 'High School Musical'. The picture is of Zac Efron who is a member of the cast. He will help sell issues as he could be seen as a love interest to young females. The star is internationally known, which helps to sell this issue as more people may know who he is. Another image on the page is of a model, modelling clothes. This will help sell issues to young females as young females are just coming into that stage where they are interested in clothes.

Double page spread
Colour
In this double page spread, they have used a variety of colours to catch the reader’s attention so that when a teenager flips through the magazine, the colours will catch their eye and hopefully they will read the whole article and magazine then. Pink, orange and yellow are some of the few colours they have used. They are all very happy, vibrant colours and these will appeal to the target audience as its aimed at a younger generation of people.
Font
The font for the title is different to the other fonts used in the text. They have done this so that the title is the main attraction on the page, It attracts the reader's attention. The 'come to' in the title is written in almost a handwriting style. By doing this it gives the article a young feel and gives it a edgy side. The letters in the word 'rock' are crooked and the letter 'R' is bigger than the other letters. I think they have done this because we associate the word with a wild, obviously rocky style, therefore the font of the word highlights this with the different style of font and the edgy shapes used for the lettering.
Images
The images used on this double page spread are all linked to the article. They are all of the Camp Rock stars. The article is an interview with the actors in the film. This appeals to the target audience of young teenagers because they look up to the stars and therefore would love to read about what they get up to and their views on different aspects in life etc. By reading what they have to say, it could inspire the readers to be like them and see them as role models in their life. The image of the band 'Jonas Brothers' is a modelled photo, where the band members have a moody expression on their face. I think this links to the article and design on the page as they are portraying 'rock stars' with their serious stance and facial expressions. The images also dominate this page, there are more images than there is writing. I think this is because younger children will be attracted to the pages which have more pictures, people can be put off by big blocks of writing.
Language
The language used is rather simple and there are no complex words or phrases being used. This is because the magazine wants to appeal to their audience and readers may get lost and not understand what is being written if it is too complex. Also if there is masses and masses of blocks of text then this can put younger readers off as it may be far too detailed for them to read, if they just wanted to pick the magazine up now and again to flick through it. A pull quote has been used to make the audience read this part first as the font is much bigger than the main article and then they'll be interested so want to read the rest of the interview to find out more.

Target Audience

From looking at the statistics on http://www.nrs.co.uk/ it shows that Top of The Pops magazine appeals to more people in the socio-economic group of ABC1 than in lower clsses of people, for example in C2DE. Also it showed me that more women read this magazine than men do, which is what i predicted. 0.1% of men read Top of the Pops and just 0.2% of women read the magazine.

A profile of a typical reader of the pop genre would be young girls aged from 8-16, depending on what the content is inside. Their lifestyles would be of a typical young girl, so the girl who's parents may buy the magazine for her and read it after school. Also their interests would include things such as, music, teen celebrities, fashions and beauty. The target audience would be classified in the socio economic group, B and C.

Introduction to main coursework task

For the main coursework task i have to design a front page, contents page and a double-page spread for a music magazine i have made up. It is a task for developing the skills i used from the preliminary task. I have chosen the genre of pop music for my magazine because this is the type of music i enjoy and am interested in. Also, i feel that this genre appeals to a wide audience of people including a varied age range.

Evaluation of flat plans- contents page

On the contents page i chose to use the same font for most of the writing, apart from the title which was 'Speak!' for this i used the same font as it was in on the front cover, this was so it is easily recognised for readers, it gives the magazine its own distinctive look.

The contents page is simple so it is easily navigated around, i have used text boxes and page numbers clearly written to ensure this for readers.

The colours again are very bright and the same primary colours are used as on the front cover. I chose to use these same colours to make it consistent throughout.

Also i chose to include some photos on the contents page to show people what they can read about in the magazine.

Evaluation of flat plans- front cover

Firstly, i chose to call my magazine 'Speak', the reason i did this was because i think it sums up what the magazine is going to be doing. It it an easy name to remember and it will potentially 'speak out' to the students and the students can have their views and speak to the magazine about them.

I chose to have the photo of a student in the middle, on the front page because the magazine is aimed at all students so thought this would be appropriate. i also included a quote from the student so this could put out their personal view on college.

For the font, i chose a simple font called Georgia. This was because it is easy to read for everyone and looks good in all colours. The language used on the front cover, is short and snappy, to grab people's attention. To decide on what stories i should include on the front cover, i thought about what the students really want to read about. For example, 'Freshers' is in a bold, red font, this encourages students to read that part straight away and hopefully then it'll promote the selling of the tickets for the event.

I made sure i included the vital components including, the issue number and date of the magazine.

The colours used are bright and vibrant, to attract the target audience, it is appealing to the eye and are primary block colours so it doesn't distract too much away from the real content of the magazine.

Magazine contents page

The things i think went well with my contents page is how each colour compliments eachother well. Also the way the boxes are layed out, it looks like a scrapbook style frame, which makes it clearer and easy to read and understand.

The things i could improve would be using a more interesting font for the contents box. Also i could make certain words bolder, for example the word 'contents' to make it stand out more for the reader.

Magazine front cover

The things i think went well with my magazine cover were that it appeals to my target audience, which is 16-19 year olds because of the suitable bright, vibrant colours. Also the subjects which i've chosen to include and base my magazine on are relevant to what college students would want to read about.

The things i think weren't so successful was the birghtness of the main image, it is slightly dull compared to the other colours on the front. This is due to the colour of the student's clothes and the grey backdrop i took her photo against.

To improve this front cover i would take a brighter picture and maybe make the picture as the whole background for the cover. Also i could include some different shaped text boxes to make it more appealing to the eye.

I chose the bottom photo because it is slightly closer up and the student looks happier and it appeals more friendly towards the audience and fits the type of magazine. Although i think both would seem appropriate for the cover, the second one seems to stand out better and looks the best out of the two.

Introductory

For the preliminary task i have been asked to re-design part of a college magazine. The work will be produced using Adobe InDesign and using my own original photographs. The magazine will be aimed at both males and females and i will produce a front cover and a contents page.