Mag analysis

Men’s Fashion

Research and Analysis

GQ (Gentleman’s Quarterly)The Website.Simple interface with easy to read and use menu, with everything in a man’s ‘needs’ (Style, Entertainment, Girls etc.)Advertisement of big fashion brand ‘Burberry’ very dominant on homepage.Small picture of the latest magazine in the top right corner.Simple, dark colour scheme, minimalist in a way.Simple, to the point fonts.Simple Masthead, featuring the title, a search engine and the magazine.Title in a prominent yellow colour, contrasting to the black, white and grey colour scheme, making it stand out.

GQThe Magazine.Very similar conventions to the website (synergy).Title is different to the colour scheme like the website, making it stand out.Other than that, simple but effective colour scheme (red, White and grey).Simple font, similar to the website again.The subtitles in place of the menu bar of the website.

GQ Analysis

• I like the idea of the simple, dark colour schemes along with the standout colours of the titles, and will be using this for my product.

• The simple fonts used are effective and easy to read, especially the bold, in-your-face titles and subtitles.

EsquireThe WebsiteVery similar interface to GQ website, as in the mens needs all along the top (style, women etc.)Picture of this months magazine cover on website, selling that too.No advertisements except for Esquire itself. Home page is very fashion based like GQ.Similar colour scheme to GQ with the fact that it uses simple colours (White, Black, Grey andBlue), except for the advertised magazine cover which stands out of the page.Masthead is effective, consisting of the title font and a search engine for the site (User friendly) .

EsquireSynergy with the website in the title font.Always uses simple colour schemes like the website, but uses bold colours in the title in every issue for effect.Always features either a half naked celebrity woman (eg, Charlize Theron) or a male that is wholly respected by males (eg. Barack Obama, Al Pacino).

Difference to the website is that the front page always crams in a lot of writing and headings and doesn’t always use normal fonts (see right) for this writing.

Men’s HealthA lot like the others (especially GQ), using a simple colour scheme but with a bright and bold twist on things worth standing out, like titles etc, using bright yellows and bright reds.Pretty much the same layout as Eqsquire regarding titles, adverts, images of the magazine itself, masthead and coverline.

As with the other men’s magazines, it doesn’t just stick to one subject but includes articles on things such as Women and Grooming.

Men’s HealthConventions have synergy with the website, promoting and giving options to read with the same subjects and matters.Colour scheme pretty much exactly the same as the website, except the light blue, using Bld Red and Yellow for titles and things to stand out.Different to the other mags. Men’s health gives a tag line at the top of ‘Health Pimping, Recession-Proofing, Life-Upgrading’. This tagline gives the impression of over-confidence, and tries to entice the reader by promising them all these things if they read the magazine.The background is basically the same as the other magazines, using a picture of an attractive women, but combines it with a male that the reader would aspire to be like.

T MagazineOne that’s a slightly different layout to the others, but other than that, the same old things you’d find in a mens magazine/website.Previews of the magazine covers, pictures that will entice males to read more on the stories they are presenting.

No real masthead to select different subjects, but all presented in different articles throughout the page. Easy to navigate in a different way than the others, but still very simple.

T magazineMagazine very different to what I have analyzed before, using a very minimalist approach, contrasting with the others which has a lot of detail, subtitles and over the top fonts.All covers for ‘T’ I’ve seen have been this way, using a very professionally photographed celebrity as the background image.No use of Bold colours, gives off the impression that the publication takes itself very seriously, and let’s the reader make up their own mind from the cover, rather than bombard them with everything that’s in the magazine just on the front page.

What I Don’t like;

• I’m not particularly fond of the recurring element of these magazine covers with the fact that they have so much going on with different headings and fonts and text covering the front (see Esquire example).

• Along with this, there is no synergy of this between the mag and the websites. The websites are all very clear, with no visual ‘clutter’ in the form of random pieces of text.

What I Do like

• I like the use of bold colours for certain headings on the covers of magazines and the home pages of the websites, I believe it gives the pages some visual character in a way, and can be used in a branding way (like the bold red for men’s health), making the title very recognizable and trustworthy.

• I like the minimalist feel to the T magazine covers and the synergy of fonts etc on to the webpage. The webpage wouldn’t feel right if it was as minimal as the magazine cover, but is still very subtle, which works really well.