3. Existing Product
Front cover
The colour scheme for the fanzine goes well with the topic that is being advertised as it is about
the Newcastle manager on the verge of being sacked from his job. The dark blue fading up into
black represents his career at that moment in time as his career as Newcastle is at a low point
now and will slowly decline, resulting in him losing his job if he does not win a game. The colour
scheme goes well with the title of the cover as the title is bold and has been put in the center of
the page as it is a big question and needs a lot of attention. The font is sans serif which suggests
that it is not a formal question and is just gossip at the moment which would appeal to their
audience as their audience can find the latest gossip and tell their peers in future. The question
will appeal to other Newcastle fans, as they will want to see what the outcome is or read more
content about it so that they have a good understanding of what's happening in their favored
club. The cartoon character design goes would be a good way to make the magazine look more
fun and athletically pleasing, which is quite ironic considering the topic at hand. This would
appeal to younger audience’s but also not look too childish for adults as there is a wide variety of
people and ages that attend football games. The cartoon character idea is something that I would
like to apply to my fanzine as you can make it very unique and also give the fanzine a creative
look that may separate yours from other fanzine as people will be looking for content that they
have never seen before and if it looks creative they’re more likely to choose your fanzine than a
bog standard fanzine. A big bold title at the top of the page is a good way to get the fanzine name
noticed. This is important as the fanzines industry is not that popular, so having a fanzine that is
easily remembered gives your fanzine advantage as customers will choose out of familiarity as
they will feel more comfortable purchasing a copy they already know has good quality content.
4. Existing product
DPS
The text to image ratio is text heavy as there is more text covering the page than images. This is because
the page is an article which usually has more text then images as they need to explain and give
information on the subject. The text box in the top left-hand corner gives a brief description of what the
article is about, and the columns of text explain the subject in further detail. This makes the fanzine
more user friendly as the customer can read the all the descriptions of text at the top of the page and
look to see which topic they want to read about, this would be appealing to customers as a lot of
football fans will already know a lot about the subject so they don’t want to be reading about
information they already know as they will find that tedious and give a bad overview of the fanzine. The
mode of address is informal and direct to the audience this helps connect to the customers more and
make the club seem even more like a community. The Images in the article are of a dark nature as there
is a broken heart in the middle of the page which would catch the eye of the customer and make them
want to find out what the upset in their club is. The colour theme is a dark shade of green which
suggests fear, this is a good colour to use for the topic as the chairman mike Ashley is in fear of his team
getting relegated and maintain their poor public image. The white background Is used well to make the
dark images stand out more as the two colours are contrasting, this helps puts emphasis on images
making the text seem more interesting for the customers as the pages are more atheistically pleasing.
As this is quite a new fanzine, it is a lot neater and everything is straight and a lined so that it looks more
professional for the customer, this could help to make more sales as they would think there has been a
lot of effort and time put into it which would make the customer seem there is better content.
6. Existing Product
Front cover
The bright and vibrant colour scheme for the Banksy fanzine suits the front cover as it
represents street art and how he used his talent to make a difference in society, by
protesting against sweatshops and more. As Banksy is a notorious graffiti artist there is no
real need to say on the front cover that he is a graffiti artist, especially as it is a fanzine.
The faint part of a wooden wall showing through is enough for the audience to realise that
it is about the graffiti artist, this technique used is called show don't tell and allows the
audience work it out for themselves engaging them more into the fanzine. The large font
size is used so that it is the first thing the audience notices is the title which would appeal
to fans of street art as the name Banksy would make the audience want to find out more
about his story. The text to image ratio is very image heavy as a front cover has to look
aesthetically pleasing because if someone looked at a front cover with big paragraphs on
they would think that the fanzine is boring and not for recreational purposes. The font
choice for the word ‘Banksy’ is very clever as graffiti artist’s normally use stencils and leave
gaps in their stencils to show detail and also use it for different effects which makes it more
the fanzine look more detailed which will appeal to the audience more.
7. Existing Product
This is a Banksy double page spread from a fanzine. I noticed that in the
double page spread there are a lot more images then text which works well
as it is all about his street work so showcasing it is important. The colour
scheme suits the topic as it is about a dark subject (slave labour) so using the
appropriate colours such as black and grey adds to the emotions on the page
because if you had a topic on slave labour and used bright Florissant colours it
would not give off the same approach. The mode of address is unusual in this
fanzine as the majority of fanzine use a direct approach and use informal
language techniques, where as in this fanzine the writer uses a more formal
approach and doesn’t direct the audience, this would appeal to people that
don’t have a strong knowledge on Banksy already as there are a lot of facts
about his story.
9. Existing Product
The star trek front cover is very colourful and bright which is a good way to get younger
viewers to read the fanzine as it is a comic inside the audience will be of the younger
generation. The cartoon characters on the front show the audience that this fanzine is
informal and for recreational use. Having an atheistically pleasing front cover is a good
way to get people to read the fanzine because if it was black and white with text all over
the front cover people may think the fanzine looked tedious and not want to bother with
reading it. There is no real photography in the fanzine which is beneficial to audience that
like non fictional fanzines as there is no limit to creative value in the fanzine because if it
was real images used there is only so much you can do when making a creative and
unique fanzine as there is a a certain sense of reality in the fanzine, where as hand drawn
images there is no limit to what you can put in the fanzine as you can display different
galaxies, worlds etc., just like this fanzine has done. The text to image ratio in this fanzine
is good for children reading this as there is short lines of text which allows the audience to
use there imaginations more to create more of a story line for themselves which also
engages them in the fanzine more which is better for children to stay entertained as the
majority of children have a short attention span and can easily become distracted by
something else. The fanzine uses bolder fonts so that children are more likely to read
them as if it was a thin font, children would be more likely to just flick through the images
not allowing the company to display their full content which is more useful when trying to
get their audience to buy another edition.
10. Research summary
• I have learnt that in fanzines there is more images than text
fanzines as people are reading the fanzines in their spare time
and do not want to be reading large amounts of text as that
can become tedious for the reader and also when people are
reading fanzine’s they normally read them as they're fans of
the subject already so already have a good knowledge of the
topic and do not want to be reading what they already know.
Fanzines use large and bold fonts when writing text out as
most of the fanzines I researched didn’t have a lot of text in so
making sure the audience see the text that is in there is
important as it could be a piece of information the reader
does not know about the subject which would give a better
outlook on the fanzine.
16. Bibliography
Banksy. (2015) existing products analysis ( 16th September 2018)
Star trek. (2015) existing products analysis (14th of September 2018)
True faith 125 (2016) existing products analysis (conducted on 13th of
September 2018)
Editor's Notes
Look at different types of content, design elements, the subject and context.
Type of content- studio/location photography, articles, reviews, adverts, sketches, drawings and other artwork
Design – colour schemes, photography and images, text/picture ratio, font choices
Subject and context – What subject(s) is the fanzine covering? What is the writing style? What is the mode of address? In what context was the fanzine produced? Context is the environment in which something was produced. Think about the time this was made.
Look at different types of content, design elements, the subject and context.
Type of content- studio/location photography, articles, reviews, adverts, sketches, drawings and other artwork
Design – colour schemes, photography and images, text/picture ratio, font choices
Subject and context – What subject(s) is the fanzine covering? What is the writing style? What is the mode of address? In what context was the fanzine produced? Context is the environment in which something was produced. Think about the time this was made.
Look at different types of content, design elements, the subject and context.
Type of content- studio/location photography, articles, reviews, adverts, sketches, drawings and other artwork
Design – colour schemes, photography and images, text/picture ratio, font choices
Subject and context – What subject(s) is the fanzine covering? What is the writing style? What is the mode of address? In what context was the fanzine produced? Context is the environment in which something was produced. Think about the time this was made.
Look at different types of content, design elements, the subject and context.
Type of content- studio/location photography, articles, reviews, adverts, sketches, drawings and other artwork
Design – colour schemes, photography and images, text/picture ratio, font choices
Subject and context – What subject(s) is the fanzine covering? What is the writing style? What is the mode of address? In what context was the fanzine produced? Context is the environment in which something was produced. Think about the time this was made.
Look at different types of content, design elements, the subject and context.
Type of content- studio/location photography, articles, reviews, adverts, sketches, drawings and other artwork
Design – colour schemes, photography and images, text/picture ratio, font choices
Subject and context – What subject(s) is the fanzine covering? What is the writing style? What is the mode of address? In what context was the fanzine produced? Context is the environment in which something was produced. Think about the time this was made.
You don’t need to find links between different fanzines because, often there are not any.
Think about a subject you could write about, a design style could work in and why you would want to do it.
Think about content. What different visual and written elements would you include?
Initial ideas can be documented in any way that you would like. Mind maps are ok, but they don’t work for everyone. If you prefer to simply write your idea, do that. If you want to combine text and images, do that. As long as you communicate a potential idea, the method is up to you. Present you idea and also some justification for your choices. You can link this back to your research.
Think about a subject you could write about, a design style could work in and why you would want to do it.
Think about content. What different visual and written elements would you include?
Initial ideas can be documented in any way that you would like. Mind maps are ok, but they don’t work for everyone. If you prefer to simply write your idea, do that. If you want to combine text and images, do that. As long as you communicate a potential idea, the method is up to you. Present you idea and also some justification for your choices. You can link this back to your research.
Think about a subject you could write about, a design style could work in and why you would want to do it.
Think about content. What different visual and written elements would you include?
Initial ideas can be documented in any way that you would like. Mind maps are ok, but they don’t work for everyone. If you prefer to simply write your idea, do that. If you want to combine text and images, do that. As long as you communicate a potential idea, the method is up to you. Present you idea and also some justification for your choices. You can link this back to your research.
List all products researched in previous sections. Include anything additional you have watched/read in preparation for production. Alphabetise your list.
