Magazine first draft

Magazine[1]

 This was draft one of the magazine, created by the second group I mentioned in earlier post ‘Creating the first draft poster’. By having me (a member who didn’t take part in the development) analyses the magazine we can get a more honest opinion, as I won’t be over generous of my own work.

The magazine included elements conventional for a soap opera listing magazine including a master head (magazine title), a main image, a main cover line, a price, the left third contains important information, smaller cover lines and smaller images. However, we have forgotten a dateline and a barcode and without the following the magazine cannot meet a professional standard.

Master head- The title of the magazine is simple and fitting. ‘Soap Buzz’ informs the potential audience of the type of magazine from first glances and makes it sound full of gossip. The colour scheme works well; the yellow is made bolder by the red behind. These bright colours will grab the audience’s attention. The  yellow connotes ‘boldness’ and ‘big events’ and the red connotes ‘gossip’ and subjects related to the theme including ‘death’, ‘love’ and more.

Images- Similar to the master head all images fit well to their cover lines; very well. Each characters facial expression and body language is intertwined with the narrative or enigma coded messaging fed through the cover line and this heightens the audiences interest, leaving them guessing if their theories of plot events are correct. An example of a fitting image is the top left cover line, ‘best friends? Hidden enemies?’ The character on the left looks like an antagonist or an enemy to the character on the right; yet, the character on the right looks like a friend of a protagonist to the character on the left. This fits perfectly with the cover line and allows the audience to guess if their friend or enemies and this in contrast will attract them to the show so they can find out, boosting our numbers.

Cover lines- Most cover lines need to be made better. But, this isn’t a massive issue as this is only a draft and the new lines made won’t take long. Some are clever and should be kept such as ‘Vicar Losses faith’ and ‘Best friend? Hidden enemies?’Ones that need improvements include the main cover line ‘trouble in paradise’. The reason I say this is because the characters did not live in paradise before Rachel Manning’s arrived. Though, their lives were easier I feel it is too random for our piece. The font for the main cover line is good and the colour scheme is good for the same reasons the master heads was. The sub cover lines however have smaller font which would be difficult for some viewers to read. I would use a clearer font and make the lettering bigger but again this is only a minor issue which can be easily corrected.

The left third- The left third is near too perfect. ‘BRAND NEW SOAP’ will capture the attention of potential audiences quickly and the purple colouring makes it easier to notice. Their eyes will continue down to the cheap price of the magazine. Followed by the channel the new soap is on and finally the free poster which makes the 45p cost seem more closely linked to 0p, leaving the audience believing the magazine is a bargain. None the less, without a dateline and barcode the left third seems unprofessional.  Once again however, this is an easy mistake to correct.

Layout and colour scheme- The layout of the magazine is good. It looks professional and all fits well. The colour scheme I feel may be overly bold. A conventional of magazine listings are bold, capturing colours but I feel the clash of multiple yellows, red, blues, greens and purples is too much and we should stick to a more simple set. Perhaps this colour scheme won’t matter if we incorporate more imagery and fill in the gaps? This will have to be experimented with and decided on a later date. Personally, I feel the colour scheme should be simplified as well as introducing more imagery or bigger images so too fill the cover more and too make the piece look more professional.

I will give my notes to the second part of our group and once they have made a second draft I will insist them in the final edit, making sure all my criticism listed above are dealt with.