Preliminary Magazine Comparison

Comparing magazines

 To see if my school magazine was successful, I have compared it to an existing magazine.

Evaluation

My magazine and the pre - existing one have different audiences and aims. 'Back to School' is a primary school magazine for parents - which obviously hasn't been made by the children. Mine is for 6th form students, and is made by them too. This means that there will be different ideas and themes because of context.

 

The masthead of the pre - existing magazine 'Back to School' uses two different colours, and is positioned in layers - this makes it look more interesting, whereas mine is straight and looks more like a heading. Mine is conventional, which explains why it looks quite boring, although it is in a different font to the coverlines. Consequently, for my music magazine, I will experiment with ways I could make the masthead look more interesting, rather than just having it as a heading at the top of the cover.  

Underneath the masthead, the pre - existing magazine has a sell line - 'parents guide to primary school' - this is something that I didn't include on mine. I have something similar - 'New year, new teachers, new start' - however, this only works for the beginning of the year, and therefore would no become part of the house style because it is not applicable to every issue, unlike the other magazine. I would like to have a sell line on my music magazine because I think they almost summarise the magazine, and not having one would deviate from the conventions of a magazine - this is something that is not always successful, as demonstrated by magazines in the past.

 

The coverlines on my prelim are conventional, and almost list - like. They differ due to the fact that some of them are underlined, however are not particularly interesting. They don't offer anything different to look at, and this is because with such a busy background, it was hard for them to be any different. 'Back to School' experiments with lots of shapes and colours, consequently why it is more aesthetically pleasing. The magazine uses a broader range of colours, and by putting coverlines in bubbles and using arrows, it makes the magazine bolder. This is something that I will consider when designing my magazine, however I don't want to make it too crowded. Therefore, when I make my cover, I want the background to be less busy, so the coverlines are bolder and vary more.

 

The pre - existing magazine uses social media icons, whereas mine doesn't. This is something that could have improved mine, because it was for students - who use social media. It is a good idea because it adds something to the magazine and involves the internet - something that is slowly consuming music magazines. Therefore, I could use this for mine because it would update it and appeal to my target audience of the younger generation.

 

The image of 'Back to School' is a BCU, whereas mine is a midshot. Therefore they differ because the way you can position the coverlines is different as to not detract from the main images. Furthermore, the coverlines and colours are linked to the image because its uses the colour of what the child is wearing. This is similar to mine because I linked the black with the black of top, although black was really only the colour I could use in order to make them stand out. For my music magazine, I want to make the colour scheme bold, and for it to compliment the mage in order to make it look more professional.

 

Consequently, my magazine in comparison to the pre - existing one looks rather poor. The most notable difference between the magazines are the coverlines - so this is something I want to improve on to make my final magazine look professional and appealing.