Evaluation of college magazine front cover & contents page.

I am now going to evaluate the magazine which I have created.

In what ways does your print produce use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real print products?

I feel that the print which I have created does fit in with many conventions of real printed magazine's. I feel that it does this because it has noticeable masthead, located in a place which is noticeable to the audience and will make the magazine more recognisable. I also feel that the magazine fits in with the conventions of a normal magazine because fits in with a consistent house style which most printed magazine's do.  Also the font works well as it has a contrast to the background colour so is easy to read and is also very clear, the magazine also includes various cover lines as well as a main, mid shot image which is generally used on a magazine cover.

My magazine also develops on the conventions of many printed magazines as the front page also included a competition, which I feel draws in the audience and works well.

I feel that the magazine also challenges magazine conventions because it includes I have made the cover & the contents page very simple, which is not always the case with printed magazine's. I did this so that the text was not over powered by too many images, i feel that this works better because the text and font styles are more clear.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I feel that my main product and my ancillary texts work well together as the subjects of the texts which I have included are related to 'student life' and the way in which students perceive various things.

For example, I included the story 'Revision tips' as this would be very useful to someone who is at college as exams are a big part of 'student life'.

I also used the idea of students going on to uni and included the headline 'Sex, drugs and Rock & Roll. Is this what uni is all about?' because students are often connotated with having a party hard life style but the magazine will tell the students what the uni is really all about, I felt that this was an effective idea as it would inform and educate the audience.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I feel that my audience feedback was good and informed me of various things which could be changed and what they felt would be effective. I was told to 'add more different colours' into the product as it would make it more eye catching. I feel that this should be taken into consideration for the main coursework task, as I feel that alot of colour will work well in a magazine. Also the audience felt that the magazine cover image could have been in a better quality, I agree with this and will definitely resolve this issue for next time.
They said the simple design worked but for the music magazine main task it will work better if it has more elements as it will draw readers in slightly more were as for a college magazine the 'simple' idea works.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?
When doing the research and planning for my college magazine I used media technologies by using virtual copies of the magazine to make the analysing of the magazine easier. When creating the magazine I used digitally taken pictures to make the magazine look better and more original, also I used photo shop to create the magazine as it made the creation process easier. I also used media technologies throughout the process of designing and creation process as well as the evaluation of the magazine by posting each part of the process onto a blog.

College Magazine - Contents Page.

Now that I have completed the front cover for my college magazine, I am going to begin creating the contents page. When making the contents page the brief states that I must only make a 'mock up' design. I am going to still continue in using photo shop to produce it as I feel that this will look better.

To make sure that the contents page has a consistent house style to that on the front cover, i am going to make sure that same back ground colour is used, I will do this by copying the HTML colour code of the front cover into the contents page so that they are an identical colour.

I will also make the house style consistent by making sure the same style text is used as well as the same type of affects on the text. I will also make the style of the images which I use look similar to that on the front page (Background of image blends with that of the background of the page). 

I want to make the house style consistent so that it is more professional. A consistent house style will also make the magazine look better to the audience and they will be more likely to want to continue reading the magazine.  
This is the 'mock up design which I have created for the contents page of my college magazine:

I felt that this was a good design as it used images which were relevant to 'student life' and used many ideas which I had previously used on the front page of the magazine. The background block colour is also the same colour as I feel that using the same colour for both pieces of work will look better and will give the magazine a more professional, effective look. I have also used the same style masthead for the contents page as the one which i used on the front cover as I feel that it gives the magazine a sense of continuity. I feel that this is a good aspect because it looks more professional. I have used again on the contents page the same style of embossing on all the text which i used on the front page. This will also give a consistency in the house style inside the magazine.

Intentions for College Magazine, using LIIAR.

Before putting my college magazine together I am going to use make a LIIAR written plan of my ideas so that I am aware fully of what I am going to put into my magazine and I can also make sure that I am fully aware of what the guidelines for the magazine are.

Language:

• Because the brief states clearly that I must use DTP so I must take all the pictures myself myself and edit and make the front cover of the magazine using an image manipulation program. The brief also states that I must use a Mid-shot on the front cover of the magazine, this means the picture should only show a person from around waist height upwards. I am also going to experiment using different angles when taking my images so that I can show that this is the most appropriate style for the cover. It will also show that I have thought about using other various shots and what the different shots do to the front cover image as a whole.
• I am also going to experiment using different colours when making my front cover so that I am aware which colour looks best and what different connotations from the audience may relate to the colour which I have used. (Eg, Red- Passion, Green- Envy & Growth etc.)
• I am also going to make sure the font style is consistent throughout. The font style I use must also be easy to read and must also stand out from the background colour and image which is used. It must also look professional so that the magazine fits in with the conventions of other magazines.

Institution:

• Because the magazine is not for one college in particular, the magazine will be more of an independent magazine like many other magazine such as Now magazine and various others.
• The college magazine will be mainly produced for students at age 16+, this will mean that the magazine will have to appeal to this kind of audience and contain stories which they will be interested.

Ideology:

• The main morals which I will use will be included in my magazine through anchorage which will relate to the images which are used throughout the magazine. The main morals which I will use in my magazine is 'Help when its Vital' I chose this as a slogan so that the moral of the magazine would be known to the audience. I felt this was a good moral as it goes with the college & learning idea.

Audience:

• The audience for this magazine will be teenagers, either in further education or considering the idea.
• I will make the magazine appropriate for this type of audience by including things which will appeal to them, such as stories to do with things which are going on within different colleges as well as including these stories I am also going to include images which are appropriate for the students which will be reading the magazines and which relate to the stories which are in the magazine.

Representation:

• It is important in this magazine to represent things in a realistic way so that it is more obvious to the audience what college life is really life and it is also important that the information which is given out is true as the teenage audience can be impressionable. I must also represent the information in a informative way.
• When making the magazine I will make sure that all parts of it will be related to the context of the magazine.

Research and Planning For College Magazine.

So that I am more aware of what to put into my college magazine I am going to research and come up with various idea for the magazine. So that my magazine will fit in with the conventions of other 'college' style magazine's i am going to analyse various other magazines within this sub-genre.

Above are pictures of the cover and contents page of the Grimsby institute college magazine. I am going to analyse the effectiveness and attractiveness of the magazine so that I will know the conventions of a college magazine and what can be put into my own college magazine to make it effective and I will also find what is not effective in this magazine so that I can improve on this for in my own magazine.

The front cover of the magazine instantly strikes me as a modern magazine which would definitely appeal to a teenage person. This is vital when making a college magazine as the audience will not want to read the magazine if the front cover is un-affective. I also believe the front cover of the magazine is effective because it is very clear and understandable, this is a positive aspect because it will be understandable for the large teenage audience.

Also the masthead is very clear in the top right hand corner of the page. This is also a good aspect of the cover as it makes the magazine noticeable and serves its purpose of showing the audience what magazine it is very clearly.

Although I feel that the magazine cover attractive i feel that I would need to add more real life image into my own, as there is only two very small images on the front page of The Grimsby Institutes magazine which are in a small size and looks slightly out of place on the cartoon style backdrop.

The college have also chosen to put their own website address as the banner headline, I would choose not to do this as I am aiming at a wider audience than just one college in particular, although I may have chosen to include various college websites inside the magazine.

Also the text which is used to show mostly cover lines are quite unclear as the blue, grey and white house style is dull and all the colours are quite difficult to make out from each other.

There is also an element of 'puff' on the front cover of the magazine where it shows the logo for the college, this could be a way of advertising itself.

I believe that the contents page is effective because it contains lots of information about what is in the magazine and is consistent with the stories shown on the front cover.

There is a slightly different house style on the contents page however some of the same aspects are used, such as the college slogan 'The word on the street' which can be seen in the footer of the page on both the contents page and the front cover. The house style is also consistent in the fact that there are small 'poloroid' style images on it which are also shown in a layered type style on the contents page similar to that of the front cover, as well as simple font styles on both pages which make the text easy to read and very clear.

The layout of the contents page is very busy (which could suggest as sense of alot going on in the college), yet informative, this is good as it catches the eye and makes the audience interested in what the page contains. The various font sizes and colours which are used are also affective.

Although i feel that the contents page could be improved I feel that it is better presented than the front cover of the magazine because it is more clear and shows thing which will appeal to the audience which they are aiming to please, such as stories about sex, drugs and real life', this would appeal because this is what a conventional teenage wants to read about as these are the things which appeal the to the majority of teenagers the most. I feel that the contents page could be improved by not having so much small text on the bottom of the page which the Grimsby Institute have done, I would do this because it will make the page less busy and more attractive to the eye and if I did keep the text at the bottom of the page I would increase the size of it so that it would be more clear and easy to read. I feel that the various font sizes and colours are a good idea and are very affective in this text and would very much consider this idea for my own college magazine.

On a whole i believe that the Grimsby Institutes magazine is a good informative magazine, but some small improvements are needed to make it more consistent.

I am also going to analyse East riding Colleges magazine 'student life' to see how well it works as a magazine.

The front cover of the magazine instantly strikes me as dull, as the black and white doesn't give off a busy 'student' like image, although the image on the front cover is very attractive I feel that it isn't the right style of image for the cover of the magazine as the colours are very dull and do not say alot about what the college have on offer. Although the front cover as a whole seems quite dull the masthead is clear and easy to read, this is a good aspect as it will make the audience immediately aware about what they are reading. I also feel that the cover works well as it serves its purpose, and lets the audience know various things about the college in a clear way. When making the front cover of my own magazine I will make sure that I use more colour so that it is more eye catching.

 Although the contents page is very clear and contains more colour than the front cover, the house style between the pages is inconsistent. The college should have made sure that the font styles were consistent on both pages, also when making the contents page they could have also edited the images in a better way as the editing of the images looks like it has been done to quite a poor standard. In order to overcome this problem when making the contents page they should have slightly feathered the borders around images so that all the image was in view as they have edited parts of the images out. When editing the photos for my magazine will be sure to edit my images to a higher more professional looking degree so that they will look more presentable. I will also make sure that the font style is the same on each page as this will also make the magazine look more professional. Also because of the green area which they have included on the contents page I feel that if they used this colour in an area on the front cover, it would have made the pages more consistent.

Organisation of models, locations & Costumes.

As another part of the planning of my magazine I am going to organise and plan what differant types of props, costumes and locations will be used in the images which I am going to involve in my college magazine.

Models: The models which I use in the images for my magazine must look like they could fit in in a college environment and must look like an average student which the audience will be able to relate to in a simple way just by looking at the image. I feel that this is appropriate as it will make the magazine more appealing and will fit in with the breif. I am going to make sure that I get various differant shots of the models so that I know which type of shot is more appropriate for which areas of the magazine. For example, the breif states that I must use a mid-shot on the front cover, so i will experiment using differant models and locations for the picture so that it will be more clear which image looks the best in the magazine and will appeal more to a student.

Location: For the location of the images, I must make sure that they are in a college environment so that the audience will find it relateable, for example a canteen, classroom or social area.

Costumes: The models must wear clothes which are appropriate for college wear and are casual, as if the model was wearing a party dress for example it would not fit in the with idea of college life.

Layout of the magazine.

So that the magazine will look attractive and effective I must make sure that the layout works well, I feel that a simple yet informative layout will work well for the college magazine. As it will appeal to students and also inform them about various things which are happing at the same time.

This is how I feel that front cover and contents page for the college magazine will be best layed out, the contents on the left and front cover on the right:

I feel that this will work well as it gives alot of space to each element on the page, so each layer will be easily in view. I produced these layout deigns digitally because I felt that it would be less time consuming, as if i did them by hand I would have not only had to draw the layout designs I would have also had to scan them and insert them into the blog.

I also took into consideration when making deciding the layout for the magazine if i should use a bar code on the page, but i felt that because it was a magazine for educational purposes and was to infrom a younger audience I felt that the magazine should be free and therefore would not need a bar code.

Construction of college magazine- Front cover

As a part of my AS Media coursework I have to make a front cover and contents page of a new college magazine this will be posted on this blog as an easier way of viewing and getting feedback. This college magazine will help towards the main coursework as it will help me to know about the conventions of magazine covers and which areas of the magazine cover things will need to be placed, I need to do this for the main project as I am going to have to make a new music magazine, which will also need to fit to in with the conventions of magazines.

For this preliminary exercise I have to use m own digital photos in an image manipulation program (photo shop). The front cover of the magazine must contain a photo of a student in medium close up, as well as some appropriately layed out text and a masthead. I must also produce the layout of a contents page.

I will use this blog to show various aspects of my coursework, research and planning, construction and the evaluation of my product.

I first started my college magazine in photo shop i found an appropriate colour for the background of the magazine cover, I chose a purple colour as I felt that it was bold an would appeal and stand out to the audience I also chose this colour because of the many connotations which this colour represents. Purple represents many things, wisdom, power luxury and nobility. I felt that this was an appropriate thing as the audience may feel like that if they read this magazine it could give them new ideas and wisdom. I also felt that a white text would be appropriate as white is many connected to being a colour of purity and perfection, I also chose this colour so that it would stand out from the background colour and would be appealing to the eye.  I felt that the magazine should be called 'college' as it would be more obvious to the audience what the magazine was about and who it was aimed at ( the 16-19 year old student audience which I decided on previously).
Potential Selling Lines:
In order to find the best slogan/sell line for the magazine I felt that it would be appropriate to come up with various ideas and pick the one which I felt was the best. These are the differant ideas which I came up with,
Be fun. Be diverse.
College is Real
Help when its vital.
Everything you need to know.

I felt that the best sell line which I came up with which would fit in with the style of the magazine was 'Help when its vital'.

 I played around with different effects on the text until i found one which i felt would be appropriate, (I chose the Georgia font option and used bevel & emboss, drop shadow, outer glow as well as inner glow). The picture shown below shows the text style and the effects I used. 

 I am going to try to use the same house style on my contents page and throughout the magazine so that there will be a consistency within my magazine. This will also be intriguing to the audience because it will be recognisable to the audience and it will be easy for a wide range of people to recognise the magazine instantly. This picture shows the image at an incomplete stage, I still need to add various other aspects onto the magazine cover, such as cover lines and the main stories which will be included in the magazine.

I added a digital image which I took myself onto the image, I also made the background of the image blue the same as the magazine backdrop so that the image would blend in with the magazine correctly, I did this in photo shop also.

I then added various cover lines to the page and added the same text effects to them which I used on the magazine title and slogan, I then realised that I needed to add simple things such as the magazine issue date and number. At first I placed the issue date in the top right hand corner under the magazine name, but I felt it took away from the title so I moved it into the bottom right hand corner so that it was still noticeable but does not take away from the other text and images which are on the page.

I also felt that there was slightly too much blank space at the top to the page under the heading so I felt that I should add something else, I felt that a competition would appeal to the audience and advertising this on the front page would make the reader want to read the magazine slightly more as the audience may feel that there is something to gain from reading the magazine.

This is the final product of the magazine which I came up with:

When I had felt I had completed the task I realised that i had not full filled the brief as I had not used a mid shot for the main image on the front cover instead of doing this I had used a long shot which was not appropriate, so i had to retake some more photos for the magazine and re-add the image into the page.

I took some more photos so that the image would fit the brief correctly, I then edited the image so that it fit it would fit in with the consistency of the house style, I did this in the same way which i had already previously edited the other image which I planned on using. When I inserted the image into the magazine cover I felt that it was too small so I had to re-size the image. I also moved around the cover lines so that it would fit in with the image, I moved the cover lines around the page into various area's as I felt they generally didn't quite look right, when I found a place which I felt was adequate I placed the cover lines there, as well as moving the cover lines I also experimented with moving the competition feature into different area's. This is the cover which I then came up with:

Instead of using the image which I initially intended on using for my front cover, I felt that it would be more appropriate for the contents page. I opened a new document at the appropriate a4 size and made the canvas the same colour as the front cover so that the house style would be consistent on both pages. I then added the pre-edited image onto the page across the bottom of the page, as I felt this would be the correct area to place the image. I also chose this images because of various aspects which it includes, such as the colours of the image, i felt that the colours on the models shirt would enhance the front cover image on a whole. I used a natural lighting so that it would give of a 'natural' college looking environment, I feel that this is effective because the light makes the models complexion look very young and healthy.  I also liked the way that bag was placed in the bottom left hand corner of the image as it gave off a 'college' look.

I felt that my front cover had too much blank space on it so, I feel that adding some extra elements into the page would make it look alot better. I feel that re-adding the competition element which was on my front page previously as this would fit in well with my idea of 'college life' as well as drawing in a wider audience because there will be an element of competition when buying the magazine.

This is the image with the new element added into it, this will be my final design:

Here are so images which I felt were not appropriate for both the magazine cover and contents page:

I felt that this image was not appropriate for the magazine as it is one college in particular, and I was trying to aim the magazine at a wider audience. Also the image would not have been appropriate for the front cover of the magazine as it was not a mid-shot. Also editing the image would have been more difficult.

I also didn't use this image as i felt that it wouldnt work well with the image which I was going for. I felt that the editng of the image would be easy but the colours in the image and the lighting wouldnt work well as it was quite dark and the lighting reduces the quality of the photo. 

I also chose not to use this image as it was a long shot and  editing the background out of the image would have been difficult.to edit and if the whole of the background image was edited out the model would be in a sense, floating in mid air as the angle of the image was incorrect. 

I also discarded many other images as i felt they were also inappropriate for these two specific areas of the magazine, but I felt that i could use these images in various other areas in the magazine if it was necassary.