Magazine evaluationBy Blue Copeland

Masthead

Lead article

The Left Third

words on the cover that say what’s inside

the magazine

The main image has been chosen for a reason; it will

also link to the main article.

The ‘left third’ is the area buyers can see when placed on the shelf in a newsagents so it is essential to have the important information on this

side.

Making the lead article sound as interesting as

possible because it is the main focus of this magazine

& will have a DPS on it.

Price Barcode Date &

Issue No.

IncentiveEncourage the reader to buy the magazine because were giving

away a free gift

I’ve chosen the word ‘outstanding’ to sum up the mastheads

meaning.

Cover lines

Main image

Slogan

Highlighted numbers & text; light green, keeping in the house style of the magazine, highlighting important features such as ‘Contents’, page numbers & what’s ‘Inside this week’.

Pictorial ContentsTo attract the visually

oriented reader & to emphasize the theme, girl pop. The pictures on this

contents page will interest the younger audience, as

they would prefer to see pictures.

My contents page is balanced with text for

those in my age range 15-25 who would rather read a

list.

The list is clear with the page number, heading & sub heading underneath.

The headings are relevant to current female artist

which is the theme of the magazine: the intention of

the subheading was to include interesting

information about the article to encourage the

audience to read on.

This is my masthead& I’m continuing throughout my magazine as the house style.

Pull out quoteA cheeky quote from the main article in black

writing on a pink highlighted

background which ties in with the colour theme: a

pull out quote can be anywhere on

the DPS. The intention is to

interest the reader.

In larger font, the standfirst introduces

the article

This vivid DPS has 3 clear

columns; flush left, highlighted in baby pink column strips. I’ve done this to give the

DPS more colour

The first letter of the main article is

larger

The journalists name (in this case mine)The questions are in

italic writing & the answers aren’t

Q&ABy line

Columns

Drop cap

Standfirst

I set up a suitable survey on surveymonkey.com to get feedback on my magazine from the potential magazine reader.

My aim was to a have a bright unique coloured background leaving the fonts white & black. This way the background provides the colour for my magazine, rather than the text & image. I wanted it to attract female readers & wanted it to be just like the survey feedback described; ‘Eye catching’.

I’m happy people thought my title looked

professional and fell in nicely with the theme. It’s

a bold feminine font.

The feedback shows I’d achieved this as almost every comment mentions the bright colour.

Good feedback; my intentions were pursued ‘good balance of pictures and text’ I wanted it to have that balance of pictorial & textual so it appeal to both oriented reader.

Made the numbers clear by adding a stroke in the house style colour.

List was ‘catchy and clear’ needs to be catchy in order to interest the reader!

88.9% who voted got it right that it was a females magazine (would of been more if a friend jokily hadn’t put ‘men’) this indicates my text images and colours were clear it was to appeal to females. 77.8% say it was a girls 15-25 which was the age group for my magazine: looking at the other results 11.1% say its woman's so perhaps some older woman are interested in young current pop.

The left third talked about Isabelle’s new friends like Katy B who is currently in the charts & the cover lines talked about Avril Lavegne who had just released her new single.

I put these on the front cover to interest people who know who is current in pop, so when they pick up my magazine & look at the contents page, it would appeal to them.

Looking at the feedback, the comments say the images on my DPS fit in with the girly style, but if I could change them I would; I want them to reflect the artists attitude and personality and these don’t portray that.

I have a high % who would buy my magazine, which is great. I sent my survey to Facebook, which for my magazine is the correct target audience because I have a lot of girls, similar to my age (16), who can view it. If I was able to promote my magazine to the correct market seller then I would have a lot of buyers interested.

No one has said my magazine is bad so I must have a good layout, attractive colours and clear to read. My magazine has been voted overall outstanding.

This was obvious to me, one of my aims was to have a clear housestyle: so I kept the eye catching green on the front cover and contents page. On my DPS I’d planned to keep the tones light and pastel; This would then stick to the theme and make every page look as though they come from the same magazine.

I got some ideas on layout of my contents page from other mainstream magazines like Grazia but I was interested to see what people would think, considering my front cover.

I’m pleased overall people said it was mainstream as the music my magazine is about is what I would call mainstream pop.

Readers Profile

Kiss are constantly playing the latest

chart music

Female magazine;

female bans

Also interested in fashion; looking out to see what the celebs are

wearing.

These images come from a survey I did to establish what the readers of my magazine would be interested in. It’s a females magazine (16-25) there interested in fashion, cosmetics & accessories. Festivals like Latitude & V festival are some of the events I can promote in my magazine suitable to the lifestyle of the reader and they would be interested in going. There up to date with the latest technology such as Iphones, notebooks and they like to keep in touch & up to date with friends on social networks. Suggested ideas on the survey were to have free tickets for events like skin party’s.

What media groups would distribute my magazine?

Bauer Media sells magazines like Grazia & Heat which have a similar target audience to my magazine. So the company already has females looking on the website who might be interested in Vivid. It already sells music magazines such as; Q & FHM. These have different genres of music to mine: so the bigger label wouldn’t take the readers interest from my magazine as they attract different audiences.

Bauer media have multiple media channels reaching over 19 million people over the UK using a range of different brands for different interests.

Kiss radio plays the music my magazine is about. It’s a popular radio station releasing chart music first ad playing the Top 40. This links to my magazine and help promote it.

The editing stages I learnt on Photoshop.

Used the lasso tool to cut the body out of this picture then used the rubber with a faded edge in order to soften the edges.

Changed the contrast to make the skin look darker and bring out my features better. Got rid of red eye & used curve to improve the effect of the picture.

It was unclear how the hair was styled and It just looked jagged and messy, to change this I went round the head with a soft rubber giving a smoother and professional look.

I then copied this image to paint, to get the colour background I wanted. I cut out a long rectangle and pasted it onto Photoshop stretching it across the page.

The final image I’d lassoed on Photoshop: I copied onto The stretched background.

And this is my finished main image and background: ready to add the content.

I represented my artist as a current female artist who readers could aspire to be like I haven’t made her clothing too individual and she doesn’t fall into a specific ‘group of people’. I wanted them to come across girly; so she’s interested in clothes, boys and going out. Quite sweet; didn’t want her to have an attitude. & overall an interesting person to read about.

This was originally my ‘finished’ magazine. I wanted it to be simplistic and not have too many cover lines. Looking at my magazine visually I wasn’t happy with the way it looked, I felt there was no structure. I felt I would of lost marks because I hadn’t written a large pull out quote about the artist or of an interesting left third to grab the reader when its on a shelf in the newsagent.

I also included some content of the interview on the front cover to interest the reader. I no longer have text going diagonally across the page, so I have an ‘easy to read’ structure. The important text has a a brighter stroke, edited on Photoshop, to make it clear and add some other colours to the page but still keeping to the housestyle. Finally, I gave Isabelle's name some character, using a different font to reflect personality and character.

I changed my left third completely and decided to have a pull out quote about Isabelle in the largest font, as it’s the DPS in this magazine.

Improved front cover