Magazines
The magazine work provided some very lively, informed and creative responses to the brief of ‘real life’ stories magazine, with thoughtful representations and careful consideration of target audience. A significant minority of the magazines were only tangentially related to the “real life stories” requirement of the brief. It would seem that many candidates focused on ‘real life’ rather than real life stories and as a result productions tended to be lifestyle magazines, with offerings focused on sport or music, for example. A number of candidates also ignored the specified target audience, actively addressing another audience of their own choosing, often quite a niche audience.
In the best examples candidates had achieved everything required by the brief, with some well- considered and appropriate photography being used and an overall design aesthetic being carried across both editions of the magazine, including the contents pages, and to the websites. Such magazines had clearly been inspired by existing examples from Bauer and captured a sense of verisimilitude. Most magazines understood the requirement to appeal to the target audience and there were some inventive approaches to this.
It was very common for moderators to see front covers which included images with no direct address and with a lack of coverlines, or with only one or two included. Font sizes were often either inappropriately small (for coverlines), or over large (for issue dates). In some cases, it was not clear which was the main coverline, usually signified by being the largest font on the cover after the masthead, and this didn’t always anchor the meaning of the main image, which is conventional. In a small number of cases candidates included vertical coverlines and/or masthead, which is extremely unconventional.
In general, less successful magazines either missed key elements from the brief, did not adhere to the codes and conventions of the form or did not show understanding of genre. For example, some magazines were not aimed at the target audience (including stories or characters which would be of no interest to 16–25-year-olds). Others demonstrated a lack of consideration of the need for representation from two different social groups (several magazines were seen where models were of the same age, gender, and ethnicity). Some candidates did not place models in different settings on the cover, even when the backgrounds had been Photoshopped. A number lacked reference to the website, failing to draw attention to this either on the cover or the contents page (a call to action was specified in the brief); some magazines used QR codes with no context.
The most successful magazines linked the coverlines to the contents page; the less successful ones included little or no copy other than titles in the contents page, did not consider the leading and typeface for the coverlines or created small mastheads, which lacked impact. Some did not include the dateline on the cover and others did not refer to the fact that they were the first two editions, both of which were requirements of the brief. Some magazines had excellent front covers but had less effective contents pages. Indeed, contents pages tended to be the least successful aspect of candidates’ work for this brief. Some contents pages duplicated text, stories or imagery/ models across both issues; it was very common to see pages which only contained four or five articles, which then led to the use of inappropriately large font sizes, combined with overlong text, sequential page numbers for articles, no sub-headings, little or no copy and poorly considered fonts.
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