Compare and Contrast - DPS

My double page spread and a one that already exists are similar and different in many ways.

One similarity with these DPS's is that they both include a running head except I included the title of my magazine in with mine. This makes my DPS look more professional and it reminds people what their reading and what they are reading about.

One difference with my DPS and an existing one is that their title has two different fonts and mine only has one. This helps the title stand out off the page more, chaging this could be something that I consider when I creating another draft of my magazine. 

Another similarity of these two DPS's is that they both have a big image of the artist which takes up quite a lot of space this helps the article look more interesting as there isn't a lot of empty space it also helps people recognize who they are. 

Another difference with these two DPS's is that in my double page spread I have mostly used the colour white for the text where as this one had used pink to help certain things stand out from other things this helps attract the readers attention to certain sections of the page. Adding another colour to my text could help certain sections stand out like the quotes I have included.

Another difference with my DPS and the one that already exists is that I have included a section at the bottom where their is a line to stop writing and images reaching the bleed line where the other one hasn't also this look helps my DPS look more proffesional and it makes everything stop so everything is in order and even. 

Another difference in these two DPS's that I have included more pull quotes than the other one. This helps keeps the reader intrested in the article as they want to know why that person can't live their any more or how they became happy so people will continue to read on and it helps it stand out of you were just flicking through the magazine.   

Compare and Contrast- Contents page

My magazine contents page is similar and different in many ways to the product already out there.

One way these contents pages are similar is that they both include a large image on one side of the page which help show what are the most important articles. 

A difference in these contents pages is that I have included a sub image of another artist where this contents page has an image of some of the other magazines for a subscription advert I decided to include another artist instead as it makes the reader more interested in the article about the artist and makes the page look more visually pleasing.

Another similarity to my contents page and and this one is that they both have an editors note from an artist which help show the reader that the artist is interested in the magazine and they have had some input in the magazine and they want the readers to have a good time while reading. 

Another difference in these magazine contents page is that the other product has more sections for different sections of the magazine where I have only included 3 different sections which will help readers find the most important articles in the magazine but adding more sections to my magazine contents page could be something that I add in the future.

Another similarity with these contents page is that they both include page numbers for the articles and pages as it helps the reader find the page that the article they want to read is on.

Another similarity of these contents pages is that they both include a cover date and a issue number on the page which helps the reader know when it was published and which issue it is as it helps they be able to find it in the future.

Compare and contrast - front cover

This is my front cover.

This is a magazine similar to mine

There are some similarities and differences with my magazine and a similar product.
One similarity to my magazine and this similar product is that both our titles are on slants also I included a quote on top of the title and something about the article underneath the title. A difference between these two magazines is that I haven't included a give away of posters but I have included a give away of headphones instead but posters could be something I look to include in my magazine. Another similarity of these magazines is the plus bar at the bottom of the page except the similar product has a lot more artists than mine does but I wanted the artist to stand out on the page. Another difference is that the masthead goes across the top of the page and mine sits at the side as for my magazine it looks better and fits better also in the similar product the artist goes over the masthead and mine doesn't as the image isn't big enough which could be something I could change in the future. Another similarity of these two magazines is that I have included a couple of sub images it make it more interesting and added tag lines for the sub images. Another difference is that I don't have a bar at the top of my magazine as I think my magazine looks better without it also the barcode on the similar product is all one box and mine has a different colour box as it helps it stand out and help people find it easier but changing it to the same colour could be an improvement for the future.

The give away of beat headphones shows that I am catering towards my target audience as from my research I found out that people who would read this sort of magazine enjoy listening to music through headphones.

The artists that I have included such as Paramore show that I am representing the alternative genre and the swear word again show that I'm making a alternative magazine as the artists are alternative and swearing in a magazine is very out their and different just like the alternative genre.

There is couple of things I could change for my next draft such as making the image a little better so it fills more of the space and change the colour of one of the tag lines so that it stands out more also if I can include free posters and maybe make my title slightly smaller so I can fit more things in.

Instutional Research

This helped me know what brands print magazines and what type of magazines they print. It helped me know what brand to print with as they have previous experience. I decided that I would print with Bauer as they print a lot of music magazines including Kerrang! which is similar to my magazine as they are both alternative and a highly popular magazine which a lot of people have heard of and this production company has previous experience so they would know what they are doing with my magazine.

Generic Conventions.

This has helped me understand what most alternative magazines contain and why they use it for there audience. This also helps me know how I will change my magazine to make it stand out from the competition by using more images in the contents page as it makes it more interesting and more fans will be attracted to my magazine also I will not include an editors note. Also I will not write my article in a Q and A format as that is very popular with alternative magazines so I will a full article so make my magazine different.

Competition.

This helped me know what sort of competition is out there and information about them such as the price of the most popular magazines in my genre of music. It helped me figure out how I'd change my magazine to stand out from my competition such as lowing the price by 50p to make people want to buy it more and that I will use lesser known artists as well as big artists to bring in another audience.