Analysing Magazine Websites

 

Analysing Magazine Websites

 

Private Eye:

The satirical tone of the magazine is kept within the website version, featuring many jokes, funny images, informal language as well as a full section for cartoons. The colour palette is quite basic, mainly using reds, blacks and whites throughout, except for the images. This keeps the website feeling simplistic whilst also looking important as it doesn’t use too many bright colours. The masthead at the top of the website is the same one used on the front cover of the magazine and is bold enough to be noticed. The website itself is relatively easy to navigate, featuring several news links and accompanying images. The layout is quite simple, with the news hyperlinks being towards the top of the page with adverts down the right side. Once you reach the bottom of the news links, you reach some more links that advertise the magazine, their podcast, binders and gift subscriptions. Further down, there is also a link to their twitter and facebook page, as well as a look at their new magazine and another cartoon. The brand synergy is quite strong here as both the website and magazine have quite simplistic designs as well as basic use of colour, with cartoons and jokes throughout. Private Eye have 453 thousand followers on Twitter and 234,735 followers on Facebook. They also have 236,237 likes on their Facebook page, which furthers shows that they have an active audience

 

The Big Issue:

The Big Issue is a magazine that is sold by people in poverty and offers these people employment. The website is very much like the magazines in terms of both stand out a lot. The website also features the same masthead at the very top of the website. The colour palette of red, white and black is very prominent and makes the website feel very simplistic and easy to use. The text of the website is entirely centered, which makes for easy navigation and reading. There are also some small images that seem to have been designed by the web page developers, which are a nice addition to the site. On Facebook, The Big Issue has 39,889 followers and 38,664 likes, which shows the magazine/website has a large active audience. They also have 56 thousand Twitter followers.

 

Prospect:

This magazine website has a much more sophisticated feel to it, using a smaller, and neater font, as well as being very formal for the most part. The colour scheme is indifferent from the other two magazines I looked at, although there is more blue on this website than the other two. The news headlines are mostly on the left side of the page, much like how it was in “Private Eye”, with adverts and sel-promotion on the right side of the web page. The masthead is also quite sophisticated, and more complex than both “Private Eye” and “The Big Issue”. The web page itself is once again very easy to navigate and simplistic in design. Their Facebook page has 22,119 followers and 21,375 likes, which suggests it also has an active audience. Furthermore, their Twitter page has 50.7 thousand followers, which is over double the amount of followers they have on Facebook, suggesting their target audience uses Twitter more than Facebook