Big Issue- Changes and Comparison

 

Large masthead	Masthead covered by celebrity
Includes a barcode	Coverline at the bottom of the image
Tagline in the top left of the picture	Includes a quote from Ian wright
Clear main image	No set masthead
No main cover lines	Image takes up whole page
Clear borders to the magazine and image	No boarders or extra stories

 

 

The key difference in the new and old house styles of the big issue are very much clear. With the new house style they have decided to follow, more conventions in their designs, always locating the masthead at the top and bottom of the magazine, and locating the image in the middle of the cover. Furthermore, they have chosen to include a barcode always in the same location as to allow these to be sold in shops rather than through vendors. Speaking more on the images used, they all are the same size and shape taking up the same proportion in each issue and aside from a few special issues, are always actual images rather than artist designs.

With the old house style, the big issue tend to move the masthead not having it restricted to one place, furthermore it will never feature a barcode as the vendors will not be scanning the item when selling it. It also will not have any set art style, colour pallet or choice of imagery as the magazine will often feature, satire artist depictions, celebrity stories, both soft and hard news stories, and festive themes such as with the Christmas issues depicting Santa drawn by children. The image of Ian Wright following the old house style takes up the entire image with the taglines, stories and masthead revolving around them.

 

The reason for the chance has a lot to do with the pandemic as due to lockdown, it was made much harder for vendors to sell them, and due to the vendors being one of the main driving forces behind the selling of the magazine, moving into shops had to change as the big issue was then to rely on eye-catching and familiarity to sell copies, resulting in the change in style.