Comparison of my Draft Music Magazine and Real Products

After creating the draft of my magazine, I analysed real products to see what I am missing for it to look like the real product. I have analysed each page.

Front Page:

Comparing my front cover to existing front covers I see a lot of difference. Existing products look a lot more professional. The sell lines on my magazine don’t have a professional look as it is lower case letters whereas the existing products are in capital letters making it bolder looking. Additionally my main sell line is the same size as my other sell lines so you cannot tell the difference between the two however in the existing products you can. Also the main images are mostly close-ups especially when the artist is female and solo. I may brighten my image as it looks quite dull compared to the other existing ones. It looks like they have a glow on their faces or a spotlight is shining onto them. I also feel that my plug for the free poster looks quite childish and would be found in a children’s magazine not a teenager/adult magazine especially for music and this occurred to me during the analysis of existing products.

Contents Page:

My contents page is on a double page even though not all existing products’ contents pages are like that. But I feel that having a double page for the contents allows my target audience to get a better idea of what is included in my magazine as this would make them buy it more. It also gives more space to include features and images. The Billboard magazine’s contents page is laid out quite differently to mine. Firstly it is a single page and not a double. Also a third of the page is given to the band index which I feel is quite a lot of space. However I do feel my contents page has too much of white spaces so I will need to improve on that.

Double Page Spread:

During my analysis of double page spreads I spotted that all of the double page spreads have pull quotes that are big bold and in a different colour or font to the rest of the article. Also the interview questions are in a different colour to the rest of the article so the answers stand out. Also I realised that having a pull quote over the image does not look professional. However on a postive note my colour scheme resembles existing magazines meaning that I have chosen the right colours. However my first double page spread image doesn't follow the colour scheme as the maxi is a bluey green colour.