Search This Blog

Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Business Enterprise: Management Kids’ Primer

I have said this at many places that few magazines are simply conceived & started by their editors/publishers without having any publication sense. Just because they have got some expertise in a particular domain or few hundreds or thousands contacts in that segment, they start thinking that they should now start a magazine for this community on this subject. And, my belief gets even stronger, whenever I come across magazines like – The Business Enterprise. This is the newly launched publication from Brisk Corporate Services Pte. Ltd. Chennai.

Though it is claimed to be a complete enterprise magazine but actually it seems just a compilation of an absolutely general management & business articles those you can find in any of beginners management books or even in business supplements of news papers.

Content

If it was focused, it was structured & designed (editorially) as per the positioning of this magazine; it could have done a great job. But, the way it is now, it is very shallow & vague in terms of depth of content. In the editorial note of inaugural issue it is mentioned that this magazine will cater from micro to macro issue of not only business but for entire enterprise. But I think in order to cater everybody at all the stages, the magazine has lost it focus.

Though, it is good that entire magazine is divided into few sections but these sections don’t have their own identity. Also, entire creativity of copy-desk must be drained in naming these sections only otherwise I can’t see any reason for a serious business magazine having all the section names (deliberately) starting with the alphabet – ‘E’…!!! It looks weird while going through these section names – Enlighten, Exclusive, Entertain, Envision, Evolve, Engage… Eeeik! May be it is because they must have thought to use the same ‘E’ in each section name that is used in Mast-head of magazine- Enterprise (it is my assumption)!

As I have already mentioned in starting itself that entre issue looks like a collection of white papers or chapters of some self-motivation book or some management school book for dummies. Few articles are so general as if they are targeted to a layman or written for a general interest magazine or newspaper. Topics covered in the issue are so amateur and top of that copy desk work is also not impressive. Headlines are so dull and boring that you don’t even feel to read the article in first place.

Design

Entire magazine is very immaturely designed! Designer has tried all his imagination and all the available effects provided by the layout software. I have never seen so tiny font size for the body copy in any of magazines. That too, with variable column width... and height(!!) unlocked baseline…! Unnecessary variations in typefaces, illogical colors & effects on headlines are good enough to spoil the seriousness of the magazine.

Mostly stock images are used for the layout or downloaded from the internet. Those foreigners’ images fail to connect you with the core article, where characters & environment described in the article are Indian.

Poor illustrations, carelessly done cut-outs & useless infographics- don’t add any value to the articles. Almost every article has different color scheme for titles, sub heads, drop caps, boxes…! There is no consistency or any logic behind so many variations in design. Illustration styling is also changing in every article, that leaves very bad impression.

Cover of inaugural issue is designed very vague & carelessly. Uneven leading, text cluttering, mismatched & proportionate size of typeface, wrong back ground color for the inaugural issue and almost merged top band….over all – a bad cover!!!

Printing

Prepress work is pathetic. Lots of images are printed in improper sizes. Either they are over stretched or they are used in wrong aspect ratios. Lots of images are printed in low resolution and so are printed as pixalated.

Printing is ok as it has come out well. Pictures, which were good, are printed in good with all the details. It could have come out even better if pre-press job was done perfectly.

Product

Inaugural issue consists of 84 pages only that is quite less if you look it as a monthly magazine for such a wide genre. Content pages of this issue also reflecting the less content in the magazine. Paper quality is ok but less number of pages and less number of articles don’t satisfy the TG’s hunger for the content for monthly periodicity even for Rs.50 for the cover price.

Overall, The Business Enterprise seems a shallow, disoriented and poorly packaged magazine. As it is structured currently, it is nowhere close to any established business or entrepreneur magazine and if it is not tweaked at right points, it has to struggle to first, find or create its own space in the industry and second, to survive with that positioning.




For more Indian magazine reviews:

www.magworld.in

Monday, March 07, 2011

Adorn: luxury on the paper

At least one jewellery magazine which shows a class in everything- in its content, text, photographs, paper, or as a complete product –Adorn. Adorn is a recently launched bi-monthly luxury jewellery magazine by Spenta multimedia (publishers of many custom magazines like Jetwings, First Update, FlyLite, Imperia, Solitaire, Apparel etc.. & consumer magazine – Hair and various books).

Content
Being a special interest, as needed, content is targeting its core TG only. Though as it is positioned as ‘luxury’ jewellery magazine, but it has no significant or any obvious difference from other jewellery magazines existing in country. Still, content is good and has variety but presentation is the area where it disappoints. From cover to cover editorial structure is one thing which as a reader you miss badly. All the articles are good when they are read independently, but at the same time they appear scattered throughout the magazine when you browse it cover to cover.

FOB & BOB pages of the magazine are very obvious & product show-case kind of pages and these pages have no clear demarcation of content and their presentation.
All they have good photographs of random products with almost incomplete information.

Otherwise, it has good features, cover story, designer’s profile, jewellery concepts, international trends etc to follow. Only section which looks misfit (though it is useful for people who are new in the trade) in this magazine is ‘Jewellery know-how’ that talks about absolutely basics of jewellery & its design!

Design
Design is good in this magazine, and that should be this kind of genre. Every product, accessory, model everything is photographed perfectly. And top of that designer has used those pictures smartly and placed beautifully that pages (or spreads) is looking just fantastic.

Colors & design elements those are used across the magazine are absolutely go with the subject & the genre of the Adorn…! Though, basic grid is not followed for page layouts that disappoints on design part. If it was taken care, this product could have been the best in the genre and would have been reference for other.

If you ignore those basic mistakes, every page is beautifully designed & laid out in this magazine.
Master head of the magazine – ‘adorn’ is good that runs across the cover. It is quite visible and stands out even if this magazine is kept with many others on stalls. Cover grid is designed such a way that it can accommodate main visual, main cover story and other stories giving appropriate prominence to each element.

Printing
Just excellent! Not a single page has even a tiny printing problem, it just perfect. Colors are so real- whether it is gold, diamonds, silver or skin; everything is printed in its natural colors. Prepress work is fine, accept a few pages. Even full page & spread size pictures are printed well.

Product
Entire magazine of around 112 pages is printed on art paper and that makes it a class product. Again, that was essential for this kind of genre & positioning of the magazine.

Adorn is a bi-monthly magazine and having this quality of content & presentation cover price Rs.100 is quite reasonable.

Adorn is positioned as luxury jewellery magazine, but so far I can’t see any big difference from other existing jewllery magazines. To justify its positioning of ‘luxury’ & ‘lifestyle’, it needs more clear editorial structuring and obvious differentiators.




For more Indian magazine reviews:
www.magworld.in