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.
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