Mag Mad - V

Second on the list is V!

V Magazine
Issue - Fall, Issue 85
Price ( I paid) - £10
Editor - Stephen Gan

The first thing you notice about V is the paper size. It’s A3, which isn’t typical of high -end fashion magazines, but I like it, as I feel you can see more of the images. I have found magazines that are this size generally have more editorial than features in them, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing and have found this is definitely the case with V.

The cover has minimal content, using san serif font instantly giving it a modern feel. Moving onto the contents page, they introduce serif fonts in the main body text but generally use san serif fonts throughout which I like. Also I feel the font is quite small but compared to the page size, it makes it feel like when the page is full of text that you’re getting a lot of information. The text width grows from close together to quite wide in their title fonts, which again emphasizes its graphic nature, yet is still easy to read. The stand out title of the magazine covers the whole front image, and takes on a different matter texture compared to the majority which is gloss and is something I really like. This is also they’re signature attribute that they use on every issue, again emphasizing there identity in the magazine industry.

Graphically, I feel it’s strong and the imagery used throughout runs consistently. They vary from a one, two and three grid and column system; with the majority of one column pages being on less important ones such as the contents page, where the images behind take president. Although they are a lot of ads alike Paris Vogue, you get straight into content it seems a lot sooner and you get a lot of it with a tiny dose of an advert here and there but it’s not as noticeable to some magazines. Stories range from interviews with Oprah Winfrey and Lee Daniels and their cover star Lady gaga. The ‘Icons’ feature was lovely to read as they feature content from Cher to Liza Minnelli. The set up on a page makes it easy to read and has fluidity into the next without seeming too dramatic of a change.

The balance between fashion and lifestyle is good; it particularly focuses on editorial, which are really striking and thought made the magazine quite unique. One article featured photography by Bruce Weber, which I’ve previously looked at as part of my degree, so it was nice to see some more of his work in a current publication.

With it only being their 85^th issue, I really enjoyed reading V, its nice to have a change from Vogue and ELLE, which sometimes I feel you get the same from, even with the revamp that ELLE had last year. However, it’s not an easy one to carry around with you if you have little space and arm strength due to its size.