FAD: Magazine on Fashion day 2 day!

FAD- a fashion magazine, as claimed by publisher, Pankaj Burande of Leela Publication House looks totally confused and lost to be in every space along with the fashion, though its tag line- 'fashion day-2 day' indicates its absolutely different positioning.

Content
Because of its scattered nature of content, its very difficult to determine to whom they are targeting. And still editor of FAD, Saai Vijayaa Venkat calls it a niche magazine for fashion and trends. Apart from its core subject, FAD also covers food, wine, beauty care, spa, interior, gizmos, travel etc. Above all, it also carries irrelevant features on eco friendliness, animal friendliness, Juices, gastronomy & organic foods and what not...!

Design
Mediocre! No style sheet is followed and that is why there lots of inconsistencies in layouts & designs. Because of poor visualization they have simply managed to spoil a few of very good photographs. Art director should have thought of the nature of the magazine that its going to be fashion magazine and that is why its going to carry a huge burden on its design & visual appeal of pages. Lots of thick frames give a clutter look on pages. Cover image is excellent for this issue but the way text & stories are put on that image, its looking sad.

Printing
Printing is good in terms of sharpness of photographs and text is also looks very sharp & great. But colors correction is poor in photographs and produces false skin colors in the magazine.

Product
Being a fashion magazine, which supposed to carry lots of visual elements, require a good quality of page. FAD is using quite a decent page which do justice with the perception of this kind of magazines. Hundred pages fat FAD is priced at Rs.60 which is good as looking at the product.

As conclusion I think it is not a fashion-fashion magazine but its confused magazine in order to attract everybody in it. For a layman's point of view its good for browsing and looking at pages but for a serious fashion enthusiast its not recommendable magazine.

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India Boating: Luxurious adventure on the water

A very niche and India’s first luxury boating magazine, INDIABOATING is launched recently by Bluewater Publications Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai at the cover price of Rs.300.

It was launched on the right time when the first edition of the Mumbai International boat show was opened for the very exclusive preview for the VVIPs in the Mumbai from the business class to the Page3 celebrities.

Content
FOB is all about news, events, shows, interviews and is about what’s happening in boating around the world. Reviews, Races, Sailing Destinations are the really interesting sections where readers can find insightful reviews on newly launched boats & yachts and can also know about various destinations and racing events who are passionate for these kind of sports/adventure.

Design
Not as impressive as the title of the magazine & the positioning of the product suggests! It disappoints when such a luxurious subject is not laid out as per the demand of the subject. Selection of colors, fonts and grid is just not appropriate and that’s why it doesn’t help to showcase such a stylish content in elegantly.

Printing
Printing quality is good in terms of photographs & color reproduction and looks quite a rich.

Product
Paper used for the cover as well as for the main magazine is fairly good. Magazine appears as a luxury magazine when you pick up in your hands but as I said, it disappoints when you go through pages. If design and presentation of the stories could improve, it can be a great product.
To sum up all can say that its first of its kind of magazine, so content will definitely appeal to its target audience. Since, its very niche & expensive also, it will be available on exclusive stores/news stand only or it will be controlled circulated.

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Five times covered India's 50 beauties

You might remember my one and half year old posting on the same forum about multiple covers! In that post I had mentioned that publishers in UK/US had started experimenting with split covers or multiple covers of the same issue. Results proves that it works well for their corresponding TG if executed very calculated & thoughtfully (http://mediajunction.blogspot.com/2006/12/multiple-covers-for-same-issue.html).

Well, its really pleasant that very first time in Indian publishing, one publisher has dare to experiment on this. BBC Worldwide has put FIVE different covers on FEMINA's latest issue. This way a buyer have choice to pick the copy which is carrying his/her favorite face out of Bipasha, Priyanka, Deepika, Priety and Aish. Or one can collect all five beautiful covers of this special collector's edition. This special n fat issue also featuring India's 50 most beautiful women, which they have chosen after analyzing lods of SMSs and vote poll held on http://www.femina.in/. Same issue is also carrying one CD along with the issue in its regular cover price of Rs.30 which has wallpapers of all 50 beauties.

I am excited to see this wonderful sign of daring & experimenting publishing in India. Apart from this lots of activities are visible on news stands…Yes, Vogue India is also launched… wait for my review on Vogue India!

La Sppa- confused!

When a magazine is planned to target a niche segment but put content to attract everybody in it then a de-focused and confused magazine takes birth. The same is happened with 'fashion n lifestyle' magazine LA SPPA which is recently launched by a Heera Zhaveraat group enterprise.

You might be aware of P.J. News & Information Bureau Pvt. Ltd. has its seven year old magazine called HEERA ZHAVERAAT on Gems & Jewellery and has websites, www.heerazhaveraat.com and www.worlddiamondbank.com also. This bi-monthly magazine is their latest venture which they want to target fashion & lifestyle industry and for that they are addressing a contemporary young as well as matured people!!

Content
Its neither remained a niche nor become a general interest as they have tried to put everything in the inaugural issue to show their broadband of content. The same is acclaimed by the Editor- Mr. Suresh Chotai in the editorial page of the same issue that apart from the fashion trade, LA SPPA will also talk about variety of subjects like sex(?), health(!), relationships(!!), fashion industry trends, youth aspects, celebrity talks any many more to fulfill young generation's aspirations!!! Its' Publisher & Chief Editor- Mr. Rajesh Bajaj is went one step further and written in his welcome note that readers may take what they like from this magazine and may toss the rest away… No wonder content structure of LA SPPA is so scattered and distracted from the center.

You think that I am exaggerating the thing?? Fine, have a look on a few main stories- 'The joy and dangers of flirting', 'College daughters relationships with their fathers', 'School safety for parents: what to look for in your child's school', 'Massage therapy', 'Adventure with Hot air balloons', 'Minister don't teach us about sex', 'Obsessed with thin: dangerous implications of being skinny'…

And guess, which is cover story for this issue?? Of course its their in above mentioned list… Fine, it’s the last in this list. No one could understand that this is the cover story, probably makers of this magazine also knew this and that's why they clearly mentioned on the story on the cover- COVER STORY!!

Its needless to mention that most of these kind of articles are foreign content and images/pictures, almost all looks as are downloaded from the net.

Design
Equally bad…! As editorial team has tried to exposed their wide range of domain understanding, similarly design team has also tried hard to prove their creativity. For example, just on the cover itself designer has used more than a dozen fonts type faces. He has used lots of cluttering in each story headlines as well as lots of colors and effects on the cover lines...! Main image is used badly cut and poor color corrected. Oh, when I am writing about cover, let me tell you that this is the only magazine I can remember which has Editor's name on the cover itself!

It seems that designer had full liberty show his skills in single issue and he/she hasn’t missed the opportunity! You can see each and every effect or cluttering, which is possible, in this one magazine...no single consistency or style sheet!

Oh yes, only good looking pages are advertisement pages!!

Printing
As almost every photograph seems like downloaded from the net, it has got pixelated at most of the pages. Few pages have registration problems.

Product
Well, expecting for the better than what you are getting at the cover price of Rs.27/- only, would be not fair. What else (in terms of physical & tangible product) you can expect in such a low price but it cant be an excuse for the poor content & design. I think, it is not going to be sold on news stand anyways as it would be controlled distributed to the trade community (if they can find appropriate target audience for this kind of defocused magazine) or it would be subscription driven only.

LA SPPA is not focused on the subject so its difficult to say that whom publishers want to target. So is difficult to say whether it is going to useful any segment of people.

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StyleSpeak: Making a Style Statement

Yes, I do agree with Editor Sandhya Chipalkatti, who is also publisher of her recently launched Style & Fashion magazine called STYLESPEAK. According to Chiplakatti, fashion in India not only arrived but has spread over the market in an organized manner and therefore it is no longer can be dominated by selected few. Hosting of four major fashion weeks every year in India is the big evidence.

STYLESPEAK is launched by C & E Media, a division of Conferences & Exhibitions Pvt. Ltd. at cover price of Rs.100. Being a B2B magazine, mainly targeting to Salon & Spa owners not the consumers; it is not available on news stands but can be subscribed.

Content
Keeping their target audience in mind, content doesn’t impress much. This 64 pager magazine carrying a very less number of useful & practical articles which leave a reader more informed or educated behind.

From the point of usefulness, only ‘Salon management’, ‘Step by Step, ‘Expert Speak’ & ‘StyleFile’ are OK. Rests of the pages are just the showcase of products or fashion shows. To make it more useful, it should have more articles like ‘Education’, ‘Expert Advice’ & ‘Step by Step’ etc.

A very long list of names of Doctors, experts, specialist, stylists is given in the colophon as editorial advisors, contributors, columnists which impresses a reader very much in the beginning but disappoint you when you enter in the magazine and can’t see any strong & fruitful article.

Design
Poor…(but while writing this review, next issue came in my hands and I can see the significant improvements in it). Starting from the cover, masthead is strong and fine. Since content is not so appealing, there is no strong cover story to put on the cover. And perhaps knowing the fact that it is a non-news-stand magazine, it is not considered seriously. Even in B2B magazines, cover stories can be put in some interesting & inviting way instead of putting some very dry-incomplete-meaningless words.

As I mentioned, layout of inside pages is improved in latest issue but still lots of basic design mistakes are there which clearly show the lack of style sheet.

Printing
Despite of being a salon & spa magazine, you can’t see skin tones accurately on most of the pages (apart from a few advertisement pages).

Product
Paper quality of the magazine as well as the cover is very good and that’s why with even 64 pages, the magazine is perfect bound.

Anyways, magazine is targetting spa & parlor owners which defintely would love this product if more articles on their profitability or business tips can be put in next issues. Design, as I said, is improved than first issue but still required to be tweaked.

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Right HAIR Right Now…

Its time to get more and more niche! You can’t talk about fashion, style, beauty, hair… everything at once; you need to give enough space to every aspect to let it spread & grow. For that reason perhaps, in recent months a few of very niche interests magazines are launched in India and HAIR is one of them.

HAIR is UK’s best selling hair magazine which is launched in India by Spenta Multimedia at cover price of Rs. 50.

Content
Inaugural issue’s Content of HAIR is fabulous. As its name suggests and being a niche magazine, content is more or less is about hair care, styling, dos-don’ts, advices, problems-solutions, make-over only. It is also carrying glam quotient by adding model-celeb’s styles & their interviews. Same issue is carrying an interesting section called- ‘The Style Guide- Cut & Color’, which is carrying different samples of various cuts & colors like blonde, dark, red, long, short and layers etc.. and ‘The Style Guide- Texture & Trends’, which shows samples of sleek, waves, curls, volume, fringes and updos etc. Other interesting articles/sections/columns are- ‘Make me Over’, ‘Busted 10 common haircare myths’ and obviously Expert advices.

A very space is given to Beauty also where beauty products are showcased And a few of skin & beauty advices are given.

Design
Average…and cover is worse. Starting from image selection, image placing, layout of cover stories, presentation everything is bad. One can easily get confused about the masthead itself whether it is ‘HAIR & BEAUTY’? No consistency of using fonts (sizes, colors). Very carelessly Single-tier, 2-tier and 3-tier lines are used on the cover.

Inside pages are slightly better than the cover, but again style sheet is not followed strictly. In this kind of magazines, where lots of advertorials and sponsored sections/articles are there, it becomes even more critical to have very carefully prepared design style sheet and to follow it religiously. Still, a few pages like ‘Make me Over’, ‘The Style Guide’ are good.

Being an international publication, Indian edition is also carrying lots of UK content which disconnects an Indian reader a little bit, but it can be taken care by putting Indian faces & images on pages.

Printing
despite of being a spenta product, printing quality of HAIR is average. Overall colors are looking very dull. Even pre-press/designer hasn’t taken care of cover image and has spoiled the cover.

Product
It could be classier if it was printed on better paper. And looking at price, it can be improved.

Overall, content of HAIR is equally useful for an individual consumer as well as for beauty parlor or salon people.

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My Mobile: Mera Wala Mobile

Hi Friends,

Some publishers feel that technology is for English speaking population only and that’s why they want to address them only. They make excuse that their advertisers also don’t believe that Hindi speaking population also has potential to afford technology.

Some publishers dare to prove that even Hindi speaking population has lots of potential and they dare to launch a magazine for this target audience. They not only launch but they also seed their product until advertisers also start believing the same.

Just two years old, India’s first exclusive magazine on mobile phones ‘My Mobile’ has launched its Hindi edition with the same name this month as a beta issue. This beta issue is available on selected shops at Rs.25.

Apart from product reviews, tests & product buying guide, Hindi edition also carrying informative features & articles on mobile trends, technology and information about accessories. As regular column, it has Mobile doctor, Consumer forum, Mobile tariff & my guide to help a reader to make a cost effective decision.

‘My Mobile’ has already created number one position for itself in this segment; Hindi edition has also potential to create the same respect for it as it has no competition.

You must be aware that My Mobile is published by My Mobile Infomedia Pvt. Ltd. which is a brainchild of Pankaj Mahendroo, National President of Indian Cellular Association (ICA).

Its parent magazine’s website is http://www.mymobile.co.in/ where you can also find synopsis of the cover story of current month and network trends and information on handsets & service providers.

Models & Trends: Four Fs…

Hi Friends,

Fun. Fashion. Films. Fame. A tagline for newly launched magazine ‘Models n Trends’ which I can’t see fulfilled after going through the Jun 07 issue.

A perfect bound magazine of 82 pages, priced at Rs.50, is having a very nice picture of Deepika Padukone on the cover. Master-head is also attractive. But the cover design is poor because of badly placed & illogically presented cover stories on it.

Content is also not great and pages are even badly laid out. Designer & Visualiser have done lots of experiments in the same issue of the magazine which shows their lack of experience in magazine publication. Otherwise they could have presented beautifully this vibrant subject of fashion & glamour.


You can also visit at http://www.modelsntrends.com/ for a glance of the magazine and for the models full portfolios.

CIO Decisions: Strong Decisions

Hi Friends,

After seeing launches of channel magazines from The Express Group & IDG India in last few months, its time for us for being witness of launch of ‘CIO Decisions’, a CIO focused B2B magazine for enterprises.

CIO, who is no longer responsible only for IT implementation & maintenance rather his role is now evolved as a leader, strategist and business analyst. This change has brought an obvious change in his information needs, which ‘CIO Decisions’ is going to address through its features on IT management, strategy and business alignment.

‘CIO Decisions’ has got tie-up with TECHTARGET, a world leader Information provider for IT professionals & executives to make cost-effective IT purchase decisions and managing IT projects. Another strong point may be its advisory panel which has veterans from IT & business like, Chinar Deshpande (Pantaloon), Avinash Sankholkar (L&T), CN Ram (HDFC), Pravir Vohra (ICICI), S Ramasamy (IOC), Mani Mulki (Godrej), Hilal Isar Khan (Honda), Sandeep Phanasgaonkar (Reliance), Sanjeev Goel (Hindalco), Sunil Mehta (JWT), Chandrashekhar Nene (Kingfisher) etc.

Editorial content wise inaugural issue of CIO-D is looking quite informative though its design & presentation could have even better but unfortunately it always take back seat for almost every B2B magazine and so is with CIO-D.

At the cover price of Rs.50, inaugural issue of ‘CIO Decisions’ is also bundled with inaugural issue of its sister publication ‘Information Storage’. 64 pager Information Storage is going to target enterprises’ information need for premium storage & storage management. Information Storage has also strong advisory panel having Avijit Basu (HP), Sharad Srivastava (WD), Gopalakrishna Ramavana (NetApp), Manoj Chugh (EMC), Sumit Mukhija (Cisco), Shailesh Agarwal (IBM), Vishal Dhupar (Symantec) and Sivasankaran Lakshminarayan (Sun Microsystems) on the board.

Immediately after these two launches, The Express Group is going to launch another B2B title ‘Information Security’, targeting enterprise security & risk managers to provide solution to their network threats.

A Ready Reckoner for Indian Magazine Industry

Hi Friends,

It is as comprehensive & practical as its name itself suggests. PITCH, four & half year old magazine which targets at Ad-Marketing-Media is carrying this special magazine along with its latest issue on the regular cover price.

‘Ready Recknoer’ is a 184 pager (yes, thicker than its parent magazine PITCH which is 96 pages magazine) perfect bound special magazine which is carrying in depth, incisive study of advertising trends in 20 different genres of Indian Magazines. It also looks at the global magazine publishing trends.

Top 20 genres, which they have studied, are General Interest, Women, Fashion-Entertainment-Lifestyle, Business & Finance, InfoTech, Auto, Media-Advertisement-Marketing, Career & Education, Men, Travel, Science & Engineering, Sports, Healthcare, Telecom, Real Estate, Franchising, Films, In-flight, City Centric and Spirituality/Holistic healing.

People, who are magazines buff, who love to read a variety of magazine, regardless of their core interest of subject, they will definitely love to read a compilation of profiles of around 125 magazines from different genres. Apart from this, you can also read invaluable opinions and outlook of various renowned media people like Ashish Bagga (India Today Group), Paresh Nath (Delhi Press), Maheshwar Peri (Outlook Group), Pradeep Gupta (Cyber Media), Marzban Patel (Mediascope Publicitas Group), R Rajmohan (Images Group) along with Anurag Batra (Exchange4media Group).

I would recommend everybody to go through this issue if you want to get a glance over Indian magazine industry in one go.