Livingetc: It’s for style but it’s not stylish!

Britain’s best selling homes magazine, Livingetc is launched last month in India. This Indian edition is launched by Images group (also publishers of ‘m’, ‘BoF’, ‘FnL’, FnL Central, Images Retail-Hindi & English, Progressive Grocer, Salon etc.) via a licensing agreement with IPC media.

Though Indian market has already a couple of magazines in this space, Livingetc has its own vertical of ‘fashionable & stylish homes’. Editor-in-Chief Amitabh Taneja believes that India is now ready to have a magazine with this positioning. Indian edition of livingetc is edited by Executive Editor, Mridula Sharma who had an association with ‘Design Today’, ‘Better Homes & Gardens’ and ‘Inside Outside’ magazines.

Content
As it is claimed to be fashionable & stylish, Livingetc is divided into major sections- shopping, inspirational homes & ideas for decorations. Apart from these food & travel articles also there in the magazine to make it complete relaxed living magazine.

Launch issue of Indian Livingetc is carrying a balanced mix of UK & local content. Though for the stylish factor it hardly matters, but poor photography of local stories increases the gap between the both. To showcase the fashionable & stylish homes, it becomes essential to have more number of photographs. And that’s where writers get confused to write text & structure of an article gets messed up. Same happened in most of the articles in Livingetc, despite of putting useful information; it is become difficult to navigate the article.

Design
Because of poor structure of article, it becomes problematic to create a scribble for that article. In Livingetc, designers & layout artists must have juggled a lot to put a complete article- words, illustrations & photographs all together on pages. That is why it has lot of inconsistencies & silly mistakes in design. There are lots of fonts, styles and effects are used in layouts which are only creating clutter on the pages instead of leading readers. And because of too many things it leaves scope of errors (that too on cover itself).

Colors used on the cover for launch issue are good but the photograph is not reflecting the ‘positioning’ of Livingetc. Even the layout for cover stories is not impressive. It has lot of variations in styles, effects, typo, sizes which shows lack of discipline in design. Yes, Master Head is looking good on the cover.

Printing
Like other magazines from Images Group, Livingetc also has excellent printing. Its just flawless, from cover to cover everything is printed perfect. Color reproduction is brilliant. Prepress work is also good, all the photographs are printed well (despite the fact that few of photographs themselves are poor).

Product
If I look at paper quality of Livingetc, it is OK but this product is not justifying its positioning. Size of magazine might have international constraint but it could be better product by taking little bit better paper. Livingetc is perfect bound magazine of around 150 pages and it is priced at Rs.100.

If photography, design & presentation of Livingetc can be improved, then its content is just fine to create its own niche in Indian market space. The product (the magazine) itself should be as stylish as its readers profile is who prefer to buy premium products for their homes.

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BINDIYA: Chamkegi Ya Nahin?

After the release of ‘SHUKRAWAR’ in the last year, Perls News Network also launched ‘MONEY MANTRA’ in the beginning of this year. And maintaining the same pace the PNN group has now launched another monthly magazine for women- ‘BINDIYA’. All the three magazines are in Hindi and Editor of BINDIYA, Shrikant Tripathi is confident that like their previous two magazines, BINDIYA will also be great success.

Being a women interest magazine, BINDIYA has its well established competitions like MERI SAHELI, JAGRAN SAKHI, GRIH SHOBHA, GRIH LAKSHAMI, VANITA, MANORAMA, GOOD HOMEMAKER and recently launched HINDI FEMINA etc. Tripathi doesn’t consider even a single women Hindi magazine at the standard where he put his BINDIYA. But, that is not true only for women Hindi magazines, in fact it is true for almost all the Hindi magazines. Gone are those days when we used to refer DHARMYUG, SAPTAHIK HINDUSTAN, SARVOTTAM and all for good Hindi literature.

Content
Whatever is claimed about making it ‘different’ from others, it is more or less the same. Selection and compilation of articles seems that BINDIYA is trying to attract every segment and every aspect of an Indian woman. From a teenager to a mature woman, from a working lady to an entrepreneur and from a college going lady to a house wife, everybody is targeted to hook into this.

In order to satisfy such a broad set of audience, most of the time content gets diversified. If it not structured properly and not presented in a strict discipline, it becomes a mess. BINDIYA is carrying a good number of articles and that’s why it is divided into several departments. But entire magazine doesn’t seem structured.

Language & usages of words has lots of inconsistency across the magazine. With this kind of negligence, how can a magazine become a great literary magazine? And while working with Hindi publishing software, one should take care of few technical tricks which are totally ignored in BINDIYA and that is why it has lots of typo errors (though those can be corrected if subbing was perfect).

Design
Design is fine if it is not great. It has maintained consistency at some places but some place it has lost, may be in order to try something ‘different’. But it could be better if it was little disciplined and a few basics of designing were taken care. Stock images are used excessively and that disconnects a reader from the magazine.

Cover image is attractive but doesn’t go with the positioning of the magazine. Cover stories are arranged & placed badly and eventually the cover is turned a bad cover. Colors & design elements used in the magazine are outdated & give a substandard look to the magazine.

Printing
Printing quality of BINDIYA is good. Only a few images are of low resolution or may be those are picked up from the web and that’s why they are printed bad. Pre-press could correct the skin tones at least to make magazine more beautiful.

Product
Paper used for the magazine is good. Launch issue of BINDIYA is carrying center pinned 134 pages of regular A4 size and it is priced at Rs20. If you look at the quantity of reading material, it is really worth it. Quality of articles is also good and you can appreciate it if you can ignore the claims of being ‘different from other women magazine’ that is made in the editorial itself.

As conclusion, BINDIYA is just another women Hindi magazine that has to improve a lot to take a lead from others but for sure it can survive as it is without struggle even in the crowd of other competing magazines.

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YUVA: Overconfident!

YUVA is a fortnightly magazine that is launched last week by e-sense entertainment pvt Ltd. As claimed in publisher’s note, YUVA is going to target entire youth of between 18-30years of age and will become a movement (!?) to help them to bring a change in the country!!! But after seeing the execution, in terms of first issue of YUVA, I would call it overconfidence!

Content
Publishers of YUVA might have thought that youth can be related to everything- politics, environment, economy, business, trends, career, lifestyle, relationships, health and lots of day to day issues of lives- so let’s start a unique magazine to hook them together and change the nation. In my understanding, YUVA is not doing anything which is never done earlier. Probably they should know that this genre is called ‘general interest’ and so many other magazines are already there in the same space. And if it is about targeting youth, again there are a lot in that space also like JAM, IGT, JLT and earlier version of YUVA… and we all know their credibility!

When you claim that it is covering everything, it precisely means that it has no focus. While trying to cater all the needs of youth, YUVA has become ‘khichadi’ only. It has no defined edit structure, no focus, no philosophy come through its articles… Topics are picked up on random rather on availability basis. Each article is written & structured in its own style, there is no consistency and not a single thought is coming out while going through article by article.

Cover of the launch issue of YUVA is conceptualized as if it is one of the current affair magazines. It has election (Gandhi vs Gandhi) as the main story and IPL in one corner… nothing else there that can show its ‘wide’ range of content coverage!

You keep on reading YUVA from start to end and you will not able to know the direction where it wants to lead the youth and the nation ultimately!

Design
Same ‘philosophy’ is reflected in its design also… philosophy of doing everything in one magazine! I think that designers were left free to implement their own style to design every single page separately, and that is why entire launch issue of YUVA has become like a catalog of so many design templates. Each page has so many and so different design elements that each page is looking different from each other. Not a single page seems that it belongs to the one single magazine only.

What worse could be done that it has no consistent grid or body copy style in the magazine and that you can not do in the name of ‘contemporary youth’ or ‘creativity’. On the cover itself, there are so many unnecessary effects & design elements are put and those are adding no value to the design.

Illustrations used inside the pages are very unprofessional that also adds one more negative in its design.

Printing
That is one thing which is reasonably good. At least press has done its job effectively, whatever is given to print, is printed well. Few images are of low resolution and in return they are printed pixellated. Lots of photographs are printed in unrealistic & unnatural colors and that shows the poor prepress work as well. It would have printed even better if prepress has done their job perfectly.

Product
Paper used for the magazine is good. YUVA is a center pinned magazine of 100-110 pages of regular A4 size and it is priced at Rs30. If you can appreciate a collection of various colored magazines of your local newspaper, its good deal.

YUVA seems nothing more than an unprofessional compilation of color supplements which has features, gadgets, roadside nonsense surveys, jokes, tarot and whatever unimportant you can think.

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Brand Licensing enters India!

I have started feeling that this is the only fate left for B2B magazines in India. All the B2B magazines, well, most of them have a few commonalities among them. One- most of them are fairly good in terms of respective domain information and two- all are just thoughtlessly structured and designed very reluctantly. A great magazine is not made on the basis of information only but how that information is structured, how it is designed, how it is presented, how it packaged… that makes a magazine really a great magazine!

Sure, most of them are doing well, their information is appreciated and that is why they are managing to survive. They survive because there is definite need for that kind of information. They can do even better, they can be much appreciated and perhaps they can have much larger readership if they are structured sincerely, presented attentively. Unfortunately those are the areas where these magazines are neglected and they face the situation in which they are currently. And if the outlook of publishers & editors towards these magazines is going to remain same, these magazines deserve to be like this only.

‘Brand Licensing’ is latest entrant in the latter category of B2B magazines which I discussed in the beginning. ‘Brand Licensing’ as its editor in chief- Lajwant Singh claims in his first edit note, is first-of-its-kind of magazine in India that will help & educate entrepreneurs and companies to setup or expand their business via licensing. ‘Brand Licensing’ is launched by franchising & retailing group- Franchise India Holdings Ltd. (www.franchiseindia.com) who is also publisher of two more B2B magazines- ‘The Franchising World’ and ‘Retailer’.

Content
Again a fantastic & very niche vertical to be in but executed badly. Being a publication from Franchise India, content of BL is obviously rich and informative but it is scattered and disorganized badly across the magazine.

In most of the B2B magazines there is one very fine line which divides it from B2C. It is very easy for editors/writers of these magazines that they can cross it and land up into B2C domain if not controlled very-very cautiously. Same is happened with BL, though information provided for the business people are good but at some places it starts getting into consumer’s space. Solid & definite editorial structure is missing though out the magazine, articles are scattered illogically in the magazine and that is why magazine in totality looks very complicated to navigate.

Because of lack of planning, there are lots of errors left in the magazine that also puts the credibility of content on stake.

Design
It is same as the content structure…very amateur and unprofessional. Only thing is clearly visible about the design is that designers have no clarity what needs to do present in what way. Selection of typefaces, color palates, illustrations everything is used just like that…there is no reasoning behind selecting any single element in the magazine.

Printing
It is mediocre…if not great or even bad! Lots of photographs are taken from web and that is why the output is poor. Because of lesser LPI, even good photographs are printed badly.

Product
‘Brand Licensing’ is launched as quarterly magazine and priced at Rs75. It is an eighty page perfect bound magazine which gives a decent look to this magazine.

Finally, information given in BL is fairly impressive and definitely helpful for its target readers but it can be improved drastically by putting same information in better way.

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OPEN for you…

…but are you open for this?

That is the question which is there all around on hoardings, newspapers everywhere. A weekly magazine OPEN, as the first product in the pipe line of their print venture by Saregama Pvt Ltd. is launched last week across the nation. It is going to be general interest magazine by touching every serious & trivial aspect of your life. The question of your openness arises after looking at its USP- Its different! And irony is that people resist for change and they are not open for it.

Though (ignoring the content proportion for once) ‘India Today’, ‘Outlook’, ‘The Week’ are also in the same genre but as Editor Sandipan Deb clears its unique positioning in his edit note for the launch issue that OPEN will not be doing something new but for sure they will do the same- differently! Well, even for the same positioning ‘Tehelka’ & ‘The Caravan’ also tried and they could not do major.

Content
Being a very wide scope of coverage it becomes challenging for such magazines to define their personality, so is with OPEN. At a glance, launch issue is carrying variety of reading material, well enough in quantity for a week. Edit structure is broadly divided into three sections only- Small World (FOB- what is happening around), Features (main section- Lifestyle, current affairs, politics, culture, technology… everything!) and the Mindspace (BOB- Books, Cinema, Arts & Leisure).

Main section has lack of clarity, which is quite visible in its weak structure. This section, if it not defined clearly, has lot of scope to cover on one hand, on other hand it has a big threat of getting to scattered that magazine may lose its focus (even it has a broad focus).

Selection of stories & writing itself is commendable that makes OPEN an interesting reading literature. Subbing & proofing has left some errors on a few of pages.

Design
Cover of inaugural issue of OPEN is not as great designed cover as it should be to reflect the personality of the magazine, the philosophy of the OPEN. For the time, let’s assume that is because of the cover story but that also is not impressive.

These kinds of magazines have lots of scope of design, illustrations, graphics and imaging. On few pages, various design elements are smartly used which adds elegance to a page and on the contrary a few pages have unnecessary usages of styles, typo and other elements. It seems that entire magazine is designed in parts because each article appears great but if you go page-by-page, you can see lots of inconsistency that leaves a bad impression on reader.

Overall, it is quite neatly designed magazine.

Printing
Pictures in the magazine are come out very well because of good prepress work and the printing quality. Colors of various boxes, various design elements and photographs are come well. Only on some pages it has registration problems.

Product
Being a weekly magazine of 74 pages, it is good quantity of reading material that is priced at Rs30. Odd size & perfect binding of OPEN makes it ‘zara hatke’ magazine in its genre. That is what exactly goes well with the positioning of this magazine.

In the first issue, selection of articles, the writing and the variety of topics impressed me a lot. If it is defined clearly and is tweaked a little bit at some points, it can create its own space in the crowd of so called general interest magazines. But you have to be open for this difference first!

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Careers 360: Right Information in a Wrong way!

Just about twenty years back, engineering or medical used to be the guarantee for the secure & bright future, but today scenario is changed. Youth of today has lots of options and so is confusion. Hence, there was a strong need for such a guide which can mentor any aspiring graduate or mid-career professional. And, a magazine from Pathfinder Publishing Pvt Ltd is here to guide all the aspiring people for taking the right and informed career path to pursue their dreams- Careers360.

Content
Concept & positioning of this monthly magazine is perfectly fine. Entire magazine of 112 pages are carrying a good number of articles to read. It is quite visible that the information & facts given in the articles are enormous. Magazine covers a vast range from schools reviews, career reviews, courses reviews, interviews with career experts & successful role models, competition guides etc.

Launch issue of Careers360 is carrying a survey on ‘10 best courses and careers’ as the cover story which is a fairly done study and it has lots of needed information in it. Apart from this cover story other articles are also well written and supporting the positioning of the magazine.

But each article looks good when it is seen individually. Just a collection of a few good articles doesn’t make a good magazine. This magazine has no content structure and that is why it doesn’t leave a good impression as a magazine after reading it.

Design
It is not as good as content is. In fact Poor and flawed design overshadows the quality of content. Basics of page layouts like grids, columns, styles are not followed properly. Layout & design has lots of inconsistencies which makes the entire magazine a substandard product.

Printing
Prepress work is mediocre and could be improved further to take the quality of the magazine to the new heights. Printing is good, except of few places.

Product
Since the nature of the magazine is informative & educative, so the quality of paper & magazine binding is kept average. Monthly Careers360 is priced at Rs.40 which looking at the articles & its information is perfectly fine.

For an aspiring student, I see a lot of value in the magazine and if its structure & design improves, this can create a huge reader base in very short duration.


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Lifestyle Living: A Variety Magazine

It seems very simple to publishers to produce a magazine if they have a mix variety of content… magazine for which genre...? 'Lifestyle' of course! At least a dozen of magazines got launched in India last year which are positioned as 'lifestyle' magazine by their publishers. And now one more magazine is launched recently in the same space with the title- Lifestyle Living by Gill India Communications Pvt. Ltd. (you must have read about GICPL in my last post on What Women Want).

Content
May be the intention of publishers of Lifestyle Living was to touch every aspect of life so that it can appeal to everyone, but as the result it is become a magazine which has no editorial direction. The content is absolutely scattered in terms of topicality. Perhaps this product is influenced by GICPL's own in-flight magazine for Spice Jet Airlines- Spiceroute, which has readers who no choice but to read whatever is given to them in the flight.

Less than 90 pages of content of this issue, is divided in six vague sections. Each section is carrying a number of articles on gadgets, cars, architecture, perfumes, travel, places, hotels, fashion, cars, art, entertainment, dance, cigar, formula one, food, living, tattoo, health etc.! Frankly, it is not a smooth reading magazine if you are reading it in one sitting. Each article is different in nature. And top of that each one is written in different style as well. May be because all articles are contributed by outsiders, that is why they don't have any writer in their edit team but they have a long list of editors.

They should understand the difference between a consumer magazine and an in-flight magazine to make it much enjoyable magazine. I have a strong doubt if this kind of poorly structured content can influence a large number of readers to buy it on news stand.

Design
Not impressive at all. Size of Lifestyle Living is larger than a regular magazine, still because of poor design & flawed layout, large size is also failed to make it a classy magazine. Consistency is just ignored every place; be it section names or headings or introductions of boxes… everywhere designers have broken even the basic rules.

Starting right from the master head of the magazine- Lifestyle Living, it is printed pixelleted. What two long yellow thick lines are doing on the cover, or what the cover stories want to say or why the cover stories are also in same yellow color… I can’t understand.

Inner pages are also designed badly. If the height and the width of columns of text is varying from page to page, you can understand designer's lack of knowledge for the layout in a magazine. If same type faces are used for body text & boxes and other elements, God only can save the layout. Only the advertisement pages are looking good in entire issue.

Friends, you must be wondering why I am repeating my comments as I had written is my last post about 'what women want' from the same publication. Trust me, I am not getting biased. Edit team & the design team is common for both the magazines, so how can it be different or better from each other.

Printing
Prepress work could have improved lots of pictures those are poorly printed in this issue. Almost every picture is pixelleted on its edges and many of them have yellow or cyan cast in printing. Otherwise printing is OK.

Product
Paper which is used for inside pages of the magazine and for the covers, are excellent. Physical size of magazine is also impressive but the entire product doesn’t justify its cover price. Inaugural issue of Lifestyle Living is 100 pages thick and is priced at Rs.100. Looking at other lifestyle magazines available in the Indian market (and when some of international brands also have launched in India) price doesn’t seem too high for this genre but looking at the density and the quality of content Lifestyle Living is offering, it too much.

All I can say as the conclusion that I can’t find any reason to buy Lifestyle Living instead of buying any of its competitors at the same price.

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WWW- What Women Want

Gill India Communications Pvt. Ltd. (also the publishers of Today’s Traveller, B2B- Today’s Traveller Newswire & Pharma Health Newswire) has launched the magazine called “What Women Want” in December 08. According to Mr. Vivek Mittal, VP of GICPL- W3 is positioned against Femina & Good Housekeeping. Content wise also, it is going to target the housewife & working women from the age group of 18-60 years.

Content
It seems that editors of W3 had decided that they will touch every aspect of a contemporary woman's life. That is why the content of W3 is talking about beauty, home, recipe, fashion, health, bollywood, investment, real estate, trends, food, society, family, love, sex, relationships, travel… and what not… (huff… looking at the wide range they have tried to covered, I think they should have named it- “What women don’t want”).

On one hand it sounds very impressive that each single issue is covering such a wide range of content, but on the other side, it looks like a mess of variety of article. They must have tried to hook their TG reader in at least one or another article, but it clearly shows the lack of editorial direction to remain W3 focused. Apart from the main content of the magazine, regular extra columns are also their like jokes, horoscope, Gossip & top of that Poet’s corner!

Entire issue is divided (rather badly structured) into various sections which are carrying a couple of mediocre articles on the same topic. Entire issue looks more or less a compilation of various articles picked from any color supplement of a local newspaper. To distinguish each section from the other, a section cover before every section is put which again shows their lack of presentation. Selection & the language of the articles also fails to hook the reader into the magazine.

Design
As poor as content... Even the basics of design and layouts are kept aside while making of W3, that is all I can say about the design. Even a good photograph for the cover is not executed properly to make it a great cover. There seems no clarity in thoughts of putting cover stories & other elements to make it more newsstand friendly cover. Even the master head of W3 looks like very immature.

Inner pages are also designed badly & layouts have lots of basic flaws & inconsistencies. Fine, inconsistencies could be taken care if things were correct in first place. Even the basic grid for a regular page is not defined. On some pages it is three columns layout and on some pages lines of text are running across the page. Sometimes it right justified, sometimes it full or left or even centre aligned!! Type faces are also clashing for body & box elements. No consistency is maintained for text to be wrapped around the pictures. Pictures are not shot exclusively for the articles, but are taken from web or stock only. That is why most of the articles have non-Indian faces in their pictures.

Printing
Printing is not that bad I can say, but pre press work is pathetic. It seems that not even a single image is corrected before sending it to print. Since most of the pictures are taken from web or stock, the pictures are printed pixelated and over stretched.

Product
This 100 page monthly magazine is priced at Rs.30 which does not look too much as a cover price. But once you go through the issue, lower quality of paper used, average quality of printing (due to pre-press) and top of that, the disoriented content makes this product a substandard product.

Generally, people think that it is very is easy to create the content around general interests to make wider TG and also the wider scope to get advertisers in, but it becomes most difficult to manage the quality of that kind of content. Content planners must be extremely careful for selecting the topics & the articles which need to be carry. And then how they should be presented is also equally critical. As a conclusion all I can say is that W3 fails to serve "what women want".

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Stuff India: Disappointing Desi Edition

“World’s Best-Selling Gadget Mag” (as they claim top on the mast-head itself), Gadgets-Gear-Technology magazine, STUFF is launched in December in India in its desi avataar. You must be aware that its international edition was made available by Haymarket (also the publishers of Autocar, WhatCar? and What Hi-Fi), at lower price for Indian readers in November 2007. Now, almost a year later, this Indian edition is released with lesser pages, poor presentation, and inferior product quality at same lower price- Rs.100.

Though lots of life style and men’s magazines today also carry the content on Gadgets-Gear-Technology, but STUFF has its direct competitor already in the Indian market- T3, which eventually is also celebrating its second anniversary in the same month. And on news-stand, the launch issue of STUFF is looking very inferior product in comparison with the special issue of T3.

Content
Since this is the launch issue of Stuff, it has lots of burden on its shoulders- competing with competitor’s special issue, setting up its own image in readers’ mind, meeting with the expectations from launch issue etc. I think, launch issue of Stuff is failed to meet all of these. Since last November, pages were already getting reduced (from 202 in Nov.2007) in every issue and now in the launch issue it is slashed down to 114 only.

Content of the magazine is divided into three (almost equal in terms of page numbers) major sections- Hot Stuff, Features & Tested. Product range covered in the issue is good, but while looking at articles covered in Feature section, it doesn’t seem as this issue was planned to be the launch issue. These kinds of stories could go in later issues because they leave a wrong impression about the overall content goes in a regular issue of Stuff.

Design
It is inferior to the international edition of Stuff. Right from the cover to the inside pages- including photographs, design and illustrations- it is substandard. It is disappointing to see such a badly designed cover of a launch issue- poor treatment of cover photograph, poor background (though it is looking much better with white back ground in subscription advertisement), flawed imaging, and badly placed cover stories… A dull cover for the inaugural issue!

Same quality of presentation you can see in inside pages also, be it product shot (Page. 10, 44, 52, 57) or illustration (pg. 39) or a concept shot (pg. 70) or a layout (Pg. 40-41, 70, 92). ‘Top 10 of everything’ pages are looking good and rich in content.

Printing
Printing is OK but when it is compared with its earlier issues which were available in Indian market, it seems inferior. Hence, the readers’ expectations which are already raised by its international versions can become a big problem for Indian Stuff. Few pages are heavily saturated and few have registration problem.

Product
As I said, Indian readers must have raised their expectations in last one year because of ‘low-priced-UK-edition’ but at the same price this product disappoints a buyer. Pre-press work also needed to be improved.

As a conclusion, I would like to say that a careful selection of products & stories and better design & layout can definitely make this magazine a great gadget magazine.

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Mega Modelz: Modeling in Fashion

If it is fashion… there are designers… if there are designers, there are models…ramps… if there are models, there are agencies…photographers…stylists…

…welcome to the dazzling world of glamour!

Both, the fashion & the modeling (most of the time) seem collectively as one not two, but surely there is a blurred line between these two. It depends up to you if you want to make that line apparent or you want to vanish it. May be it is a smart way to target both in one shot that is why '100 communications', a Delhi based fashion event company has recently launched a bi-monthly magazine- 'Mega Modelz'.

Rough ramp to walk
'Models & Trends' (http://mediajunction.blogspot.com/2007/06/four-fs.html), Style & Speak (http://mediajunction.blogspot.com/2007/09/style-statement.html), FAD (http://mediajunction.blogspot.com/2007/12/magazine-on-fashion-day-2-day.html), FnL, Images:BOF, Gladrags and Asiana (Wedding & Fashion) are few of existing magazines in the same space- a mix of fashion-trends–modeling which are going to be tough competition for Mega Modelz.

Content
Inaugural issue of 'Mega Modelz' clearly shows the confusion of editorial direction. The structure of magazine, selection of stories, presentation of content gives a very shallow & disoriented editorial impression. What worse it could be that the cover story of inaugural issue itself is a wrong story to be even in the issue, forget about putting it as a cover story. On the cover it says- 'New age supermodels?' which as a cover story doesn’t convey what it is all about. And top of that, in the 5 pages long & shorter than around 600 words story, it gives a negative verdict (page 31) – 'An era truly had come to an end' because new faces (cricket- bollywood celebs) have stepped in modeling!

Content is poorly scattered across the magazine. Everything is there in one issue but it looks like a mess. Photographers, fashion makers, and models of course… everyone is featured or interviewed under various sections/columns names. At the end of issue, it is carrying a directory of modeling agencies, advertising agencies & photographers. It could be useful for its TG if it wasn’t erroneous (entire list of photographers' names from A to L is missing from alphabetical listing).

Design
Cover is looking attractive but credit goes to stunning photograph. Other elements on the cover are placed badly. It could be a great cover with a little efforts on layout & placing text on the cover as it has got very strong & perfect picture for its kind of cover.

Inside pages are looking mediocre as they don’t have any design style sheet. No guidelines for putting text on pictures, columns, text leading, type faces, font sizes.. nothing seems as per guidelines (which is for sure not there). It seems that designer was free to pick & use any font whichever was installed on his machine.

Printing
Most of the pictures looks like stock pictures or seems as taken from agencies. That is why there is no consistency in quality of photographs. Prepress work is done carelessly as you can't see true skin color in most of the pictures. Printing could be improved and that could makeup the weaknesses of color correction work. Cover is printed well, specially the back cover was needed that kind of excellence to print that advertisement.

Product
A tall size (21 x 29.5 cms) bi-monthly magazine of 100 pages is priced at Rs100 which is quite OK for its kind of product. Unless it is opened, magazine looks very classy that gives it a look of a rich product.

As a conclusion, if it doesn’t improve on main content of the magazine and if it not kept focused editorially, it will start looking a me-too kind of magazine with some glossy pictures.

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Content .......................: ●●◐○○
Design & Layout ..........: ●●○○○
Printing ........................: ●●◐○○
Product ........................: ●●◐○○
Value for Money ...........: ●●◐○○
----------------------------------------------------------
‘VIRDI’CT ......................: ●●◐○○
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How to use ‘VIRDI’CT..??
●○○○○ Browse & leave it
●●○○○ Borrow & Read it
●●●○○ Buy it occasionally
●●●●○ Buy regularly
●●●●● Subscribe it now!!!