Evaluating Existing Products

When evaluating existing products I went through a range of magazines. Some of them were fashion magazines, general magazines, free magazines and the more high-end ones. I went through the whole of the magazines and I pulled out the pages that stood out to me. Analysing these would help me in the future when making up my magazine as I would know what to do when making the striking pages I desire. I looked at five different aspects on the pages; colour, photography, writing style, font and text/picture ratio. I went through each aspect and picked out everything explaining what was done and why.

I found out a range of things from why certain colours are used and why a certain ratio of text and images is used. I found that when the article is sad and down, the colours tend to be quite dark too. When using colours they are used not too often and they are executed very well. The colours tend to have the same tone and are not too striking. When the colours aren’t the same, they are totally different from each other and this makes the article pop out.

When constructing a magazine a lot of thought process is put into it. The photography is also a highly thought part of the magazine. Most of the images are posed so this means that the magazine company have to go out of their way to get paparazzi or organise a photo shoot with the chosen celebrity. The posed images in the magazines make them professional.  If the image is not taken by the magazine, the image is often screen shots of the topic in conversation, e.g. a clip in a movie or a TV show.

The text also matters when constructing an article together. Whether it is relaxed or very posh; the text is a very big part of the article and have the correct writing style matters a lot. It has to match with the chosen topic otherwise the article will not flow. Making sure the writing is readable to all abilities is definitely important; it has to be basic enough for the lower class to read it but interesting enough for the upper class to read it.

The font is also very important too. The text needs to be legible yet eye catching at the same time. Using a sans serif font or a serif font will depend on the article.

By analysing existing magazines I have been able to decide what sort of articles I would like in my magazine, how I want them to look and what I want them to be about. Getting a range of magazines and analysing different pages has given me a wide range of pages I could possibly make. I have realised that the pages that jump out are the ones that have a very good, striking page layout, font and colour scheme. The colours have to flow, the page layout needs to be unique and striking and the font needs to stand out.