Magazine Comparison: Cereal Vs. Forbes

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[ Magazine Dissection By Yiyao Wu ]

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凉水 ［Liáng Shuǐ］ With clean and neat graphic design We can easily digest the info Either read it detailed Or just a quick browse Just like drinking WATER You can either sip or chug the whole jar

COLD WATER

Represents Magazine-Cereal

HOT SOUP

Represents Magazine-Forbes Graphic design is cluttered We can’t really take a quick browse Have to take it apart Chunk by chunk Just like Hot Soup You can take a smaller sip

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Content 4 Fs

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Cover Index Spread Depts.

Function Formula Format Frames

Function

Cereal’s function is to be a visually pleasing and inspiring travel & lifestyle magazine that not only allows the reader to be engaged with the beautiful publication but also to explore unique destinations around the world. The target audience for Cereal is mostly urban young people who love to travel and learn about far away places and ideas.

Forbes focuses on finance, industry, investing and marketing topics. It also reports on related subjects such as technology, communications, science and law. The main audience for this publication are those that are interested in finance.

Formula

Cereal’s a more modern publication; it’s formula includes a large amount of professionally taken photography, outstanding articles, strong use of negative space, beautiful typography, and high quality paper stock. This publication has a lot of articles that focus on outdoor scenic spaces.

Forbes has a highly recognizable logo on the cover page and features a lot of articles sorted by department. Though it has a very busy feel, the reader is provided with a huge amount of information in an easily accessible way.

Format

Cereal uses simple and neat graphic design with a very systematic grid system that incorporates images along with typography. Typography is one of Cereal’s strengths and is used very well throughout the entire publication.

Cereal uses negative space beautifully and this helps to give character to the the magazine.

Forbes uses thin papers, which makes it ideal for mailing due to its light weight. It’s lower price is a trade off for its high level of advertisements. It is also lacking in images related to articles. There are no good transitions between the text and the images. The overall design is just too crowded. Too much information in too little space.

Frames

Cereal is consistent in terms of their overall design. It uses bleeds and a very rigid grid system. There is a lot of negative space, which makes photographs stand out. The color choice is really subtle, which works because there are a lot of articles about nature.

Forbes uses a white background, but because of the thin paper, it almost looks yellowish. There are very few images aside from advertisements and the images in articles are quite unrelated. This publication has a very tight grid system, which makes everything look really busy. It uses different colors to represent different departments. From a design standpoint there is very little design appeal and it lacks in creativity.

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Logo

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Feature Articles Issue #

Website

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Main Cover Line

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凉水 Header

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Feature Article

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Date Main Image

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Cool Watch

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Feature Article

Department

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Editor’s Mugshot

Byline

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Images

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Advertisement

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