Previous Student's Work Evaluation

I analysed existing music magazines created by students, picking out their key strengths and also areas for improvement which I can then take into consideration when creating my own magazine.

Name of product	What I thought were the strengths	What I thought were the weaknesses
Noisette	The main image on cover is located on top of the masthead, a feature found in many popular magazines where displaying the masthead is not required due to the well-known nature of the magazine. There is a clear colour scheme of black and red. As seen during research, these two colours go together very well, and are used in almost all successful music publications. The two colours are particularly powerful and stand out from many other elements of the magazine. As for the fonts, the fonts are interesting and stand out when compared to other traditional fonts such as Times New Roman or Arial. The contents page followed the traditional conventions of a typical music magazine, with the layout including a main/prominent image, smaller images with captions and a list of each article’s contents, all of which are typical features of a music magazine.	On the cover, there is red text on a green background. The two colours do not work well together, and the red text is difficult to read against the green background. The green background section also disrupts the colour scheme of red, black and white, which is also present throughout the rest of the magazine. Text during the article changes size and width. This could possible be due to space constraints, but is a noticeable change which looks slightly unprofessional. Finally, in the magazine, there is lots of white space, especially on the contents page. Background images or colours could be implemented behind the contents page to cause the whole thing to look slightly more professional and give the whole page slightly more of a powerful look. The lack of colour on this contents page is the only factor that lets it down. In the main article, there is still white space, however the article text is spaced out well enough to ensure that the white space is not prominent.
Stage	There is a prominent masthead located on the top of the page. Sell lines are also located on various locations across the entire page. During the article, which is an interview, the layout of the magazine is set out like a traditional interview style. There are two separate colours of font, which changes depending on who is speaking. There is also a pull quote on the page, which is taken directly from the article, a feature that helps to break apart the text and help the reader to break down the article text into manageable chunks. Drop caps has also been used, albeit on the strapline rather than the traditional article text. This is a good feature to use as it allows the reader to clearly see where the article starts. There is a clear colour scheme on the contents page and the main cover of blue and white.	3/4 of the images used are of particularly off-putting quality. The main image on the cover, which should attract the reader’s attention, is heavily pixelated. There are varying fonts and font sizes that cause the magazine to look unprofessional, especially on the main cover in the case of the sell lines. The fact that there are two instances where the sell line font is not in a particularly interesting font would detract the reader’s attention. The contents page in particular is bland and uninteresting, mainly due to the pure blue background rather than an image as the background or even just the colour white, with shapes or tables incorporated to cause the contents themselves to stand out amongst the plain blue background. The previous colour scheme of blue, black and white is not present in the article, and it changes to a black, red and white colour scheme, which causes it to look unprofessional.
Region N.E	The masthead/magazine logo is very well designed, and almost looks like a professional magazine logo. The presence of the red stars runs throughout the entire magazine. The contents page layout is very professional and follows the conventions of other magazine content pages. For example, there is a list of the magazine articles located on the right-hand side of the page, and there are pictures and page numbers underneath each image, with one-word descriptions accompanying this one. This format gives a slight indication to the reader about the contents of the article, but also does not give enough so that they will be inclined to go ahead and read the article itself. The article is a very well presented article with many key conventions being included, such as a pull quote; drop cap and a main image on the right-hand side page.	The image has been tampered with to achieve an effect of a transparent background. In doing so, not all of the background has been removed, leaving large sections of what appears to be a wall still present in the image. Even if the background had been removed successfully, there is no image or colour behind the main image anyway, which may have subtracted a small amount of attention away from the pixelated background of the main image. There is also an abundance of white space throughout the magazine, which is very unprofessional, especially considering the background is white anyway, which further emphasises the lack of content. The sell line font is also very generic and does not stand out well in comparison to other text on the page. Lack of proper punctuation and spelling (“yea”) is also very off-putting.
I.D	Clear colour scheme of black and orange is present throughout the magazine. Very little blank space present. Font style is consistent and remains similar throughout the entire magazine. Contents page preview images and page numbers reminiscent of professional content pages. For the main cover, the orange and black colour scheme work well together yet creates an overall effectively coloured image, and neither the black nor the orange overpower each other. Images are full size on the page, similar to those in professional magazines. Capital/bold fonts are relatively small so that they are not too large and overpowering, yet still have an impact on the reader. The ‘I.D’ masthead on the front cover is placed behind the subject of the main image, just like many traditional music magazines.	The image quality is slightly poor, and not in a great quality for the magazine. The article page has no black on it, making the orange appear very off-putting and a bit of an eyesore. The contents page does not feature any orange, which causes the black to be a very dismal and bland colour without anything brighter to cause it to stand out.
Revive	Main image is placed behind masthead, like many professional magazines. Main cover sell lines also give small details about the article stories without giving too much away so that the reader is still inclined to purchase the magazine. Contents page images feature numbers which signify the page number which hosts the article about the specific subject. The colour scheme is consistent throughout the magazine, with the lilac/purple/pink/grey colour scheme being clearly present throughout the entire magazine. The interview layout is styled as if it were a professional interview. The spelling and overall article layout is reminiscent of a professional magazine, having key features from an article such as a headline, strap line, pull quote and a main image too.	The fonts are rather varied in relation to the sell lines and the font is not constant across the sell line descriptions either, which is rather off-putting. Capitalisation varies, with two sell lines being in various capitalisation ('THE BRITS Gossip', and 'tOP 10'). As for the contents page, the subject's image has been repeated three times, with one instance of the image sufficing the content page. In at least two instances, the subject's image has either been cropped or initially photographed in such a way that the her head has been omitted from the image, giving a slightly unprofessional look to an otherwise well-designed magazine. The font style used throughout the magazine is generally an overall unprofessional font to use for professional magazines. Simple fonts like Times New Roman or Arial will suffice, and fancy, irregular fonts generally look poor and unprofessional.

How I will use this new knowledge to help me create my own product: I will ensure that images I use in my magazine are of a high-standard and are cropped well, leaving no sudden or jagged edges on the image at all. I will also keep in mind that an equal colour balance must be achieved throughout the magazine, as was in the case of the I.D magazine, the contents page did not have any orange present, and the article page did not have any black present, whereas if both pages featured a mixture of black and orange, the colour balance would have been achieved. Despite being minor flaws, proper spelling and punctuation are basic essentials to ensure a magazine looks as professional as it can be. It is difficult to take a magazine seriously when there are frequent spelling or punctuation errors. Finally, white space has also been present in a number of the magazines which I have looked at. White space should be present for as little time as possible, to ensure the audience's attention is not drawn to that specific part of the page, as it will look different than the rest due to the fact there will be nothing there.

What I have learned from looking at student work:

Images are important for any magazine, and pixelated images can ruin the whole look of an article or the magazine entirely. Photoshop skills are also important. Ensuring that images have been cropped correctly or that the backgrounds of the images have been successfully removed are vital necessities that can make all the difference between an amateur magazine and a professional-quality magazine. Consistent font styles across the magazine, using three fonts as a maximum, and with all three looking vaguely familiar to one another, however different enough to cause emphasis which is desired by using three separate fonts. Keep the fonts simple, as irregular fonts decrease the sense of professionalism and overall decrease the magazine's quality.