I have begun to start my preliminary media coursework which involves creating my own student magazine. I have now started to research and analyse a few different magazine front covers to help me find out what attributes I would like to add to my very own magazine, but also researching the various magazines shows me what techniques they have used that I don't think will work very well to interest my target audience for my magazine.
Also, I have composed a few drawings of what i would like my magazine front cover to look like. However the drawings i have produced I am going to improve on for my actual magazine front cover.
In the Image above I have analysed a magazine front cover that is advertising the olympics. I have analysed specific points on the magazine that I enjoy or think needs to be improved on for my student magazine. As you can see overall the front cover is very eye catching and colourful which will draw in the target audience, which would be sportsmen and women. The typography used for this magazine front cover i feel works very well with the theme of the magazine especially the type of font used for the cover lines. I feel that the structure of the magazine front cover is quite busy in ways due to the fact that so many images are involve in one section of the page which makes me feel that the front cover is quite busy and too close together, which will help me improve on my student magazine front cover.
I have annotated the image above which is of a student magazine which relates well with my preliminary task.
As you can see the magazine cover contains 1 main image which is of a few students walking during graduation, however the girl in the image has been sectioned out by a close up photo shot of her turning away from her fellow student and the background of her surroundings has become blurred out to make sure the reader focuses on her so that the magazine appeals to the target audience. The image and the font of the master head both target teenagers who are studying at university and are achieving quite a lot in their studies. Furthermore, the magazine also targets members of the public who may want to start going to university to achieve greater accomplishments, because the image is of a girl who has achieved at college/university and she is proud due to the fact that she is smiling in the image. The fonts used for the master head and cover lines are quite formal types of typography because the letters in each word are quite sharp, square and straight which appeals to the target audience, where as if the font was something like comic sans (which is very appealing to young children) it wouldn't really be eye-catching to the target audience.
The image above is of a music magazine contents page which i thought would help quite a lot with my research. As you can see the images that are used for this particular contents page are quite pointless because they do not represent anything to do with music instead, they are just of random men posing in different environments. I don't really like this contents page because i feel that the word are quite cramped and are overcrowded by the images used in the contents page. On the other hand, i do like the use of the red and the black on the area where the title says VIBE.COM. I feel that the red works well with the black because, it makes the words stand out to the reader instead of the reader becoming focused on the images. Overall, I feel that this contents page doesnt really appeal to a particular target audience other than men because all the images used are quite manly in ways. Also the men that are used as models for the contents page of the magazine are wearing clothes that are completely different to each other which really doesn't make sense because the magazine is meant to be for one theme.
The image I have used above is of another contents page which from my point of view appeals more to their target audience rather than the music contents page that I have analysed above. The reason for this is because i believe that the fonts that are used for the master head work very well with the images used for the contents page and appeal directly to the target audience which i believe is quite gothic teenagers. However, this contents page and the other contents page I have described above do share sum similarities. Both contents pages use the technique of using coloumns to seperate the images used from the text about the magazine. This is a good technique to use because, it gives both contents pages a good structure and layout which makes the reader feel like the contents part of the magazines hasn't been rushed. This magazine also uses the same technique as the contents page established before because, they both highlight important parts of the text using bright and attractive colours. For this particular contents page they have decided to use the colour green and yellow to hilight specific parts of the text. The colours used also appeal to the target audience which also makes me feel that this contents pages surpasses the one I analysed before.
The image i have pasted above is of my first practice draft for the student magazine that I have created. As you can see the magazine is quite plain and dull due to the plain background. This rough draft is not appealing at all to my target audience due to the fact that the magazine does not look like a magazine, instead what I have created looks more like a poster. This draft involves too many square shaped elements on the front cover so it makes the student magazine look rushed and put together without thought. However the image that is used which has been placed on top of the grey background i feel will become my main image when i begin to create my final student magazine. Also, with this magazine the cover lines are not eye-catching or effective at all. The cover lines are very boring and have been placed in a less attractive position, and the size of the cover lines are a smaller font compared to the selling line which is almost the same size as the master head which is completely wrong. Furthermore, the cover line that is placed with the yellow background does not look appealing at all, it has been placed in any random position on the front cover, and draws attention away from the title and all the other cover lines. The colour scheme of this practice draft of the magazine I feel Works well so I may introduce it to my final student magazine idea.
The image above is of a specific font i am interested in using for my student magazine. The font is called colleged and i downloaded it from dafont.com. As you can see i have used this font previously in my rough draft of the studen magazine which i have shown above. There is one problem with the font though and that is that in some areas of the letters for instance the 'G' it is very faded and therefore will be hard for readers to see, so i am going to have to find a solution to that problem. Also, another reason why i have taken a liking to this font is because it appeals to the target audience directly. The letters are shaped like the letters found on an American high school jacket which directly shows the reader that the magazine they are about to read is about school and education. I have used this font as the title in the rough draft found above but through development I felt that I may use this font for the cover lines on my final student magazine.
The image on the text above is another font that I am very fond with called college semi-condensed which is also found on dafont.com. As you can see this font is much more visible than the font I have shown above that is why I have considered to use this particular font for my master head. For now I have used this font for the cover lines in my first draft for the magazine and i feel that the font just isn't effective enough as the colleged font. I feel that this font should only be used for the issue date of the magazine and the selling line because, this font is very smooth and quite elegant and plus the sections I want to use this font for are going to be quite small so it will blend in very nicely.
This image above is the final piece for my student magazine which all of my research and development has come to conclude. As you can see I have changed many aspects from the 1st draft of the magazine which I think helped the final outcome much more successful. On the other hand I did keep specific images, like the main picture of a student (myself) shaking hands with one of the teachers in the college. I changed the font of the mast head because i believed this font was much more bold and attractive to the human eye. I gave the mast head a separate background for itself to give the magazine much more detail for the colour scheme which is grey and light blue. The background of the entire magazine from the first draft has also been changed because, i felt that having a plain background was to simple and effortless so i decided to change it to a gradient background which meant that it would fade from a darker type of colour, to a lighter colour. In this case it changed from light blue to white as it gradually got to the base of the magazine. For the final piece I continued to use the 'Colleged' font for the cover lines because the font is very bold and relates to college life and being a part in education. Also around the two images towards the bottom of the magazine I placed a light blue background around both images, and then added a dark black shadow around the light blue background to make the two images stand out just as much as the main image.
These two images are from the build up of my preliminary contents page that I have created. As you can see I have assembled a grid onto the sheets, this will help with the positioning of my images for the contents page.
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For my student magazine product I have done a lot of research which has been shown above to help my knowledge of what needs to be done to produce a successful student magazine front cover and contents page. I have researched 2 types of magazine front covers and 2 types of contents front covers and pointed out the aspects of each which I like and want to use in my own magazine and also what I dislike. To get my front cover and contents page to be attracted to the target audience I have taken many photographs that relate to the actual topics of the student magazine. Also for the cover lines I used a font that was all capital letters so that when the target audience would view the front cover they would instantly think that the magazine is important.
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
For my student magazine I would hope that local education shops and the college itself would advertise the magazines on their shelves and also with a few posters and leaflets. This is because, since the magazine would be advertised locally this would allow more customers to purchase the item because the college being advertised is in their neighborhood, so therefore the public and students would like to know what is actually going on with the education in that area.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience for my student magazine would be a variety of people such as: students (aged 15-18), parents, members of staff at the college and the local mayor. This is because all of these types of people would all have an interest in the education that is occurring in the area. In my magazine front cover the target audience is established through the cover lines, because they are all to do with students achieving goals in college and moving on to higher education so I think that the age group I have established is quite accurate for my magazine.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract my target audience i used many creative techniques to make the magazine front cover and contents page appeal to them. Such as all of the fonts used for both the front cover and the contents page are all very rounded and nicely shaped for each letter, instead of using a font like 'Times New Roman' which is very straight, sharp and quite basic which would never appeal to the age group of the students. Also for the age group of the students I used many design techniques to make the front cover and contents page look as creative as possible. For the more adult side of my target audience i feel that the images I have used will address them positively because, the images show students getting on with work and respecting teachers, and will give members of the public such as parents the idea that they would wish for their son/daughter to come to this particular college for education when the time comes.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt quite a lot about the software's I have used to construct my magazine project. The first software i used was 'Adobe Photoshop' and to be honest before we did the task I had no idea how to actually use Photoshop because I had never actually used it before. However, after a bit of help from my media teacher and a few YouTube videos i learnt about the basics of Photoshop which allowed me to explore and expand on the techniques of the whole software so i could find out about tools such as the blur tool and the magic wand tool. Also, another software i had used called 'In Design' which I had never heard about until i began the contents page for my student magazine. This software is very straight forward to use once you have use it once or twice. I figured out how to use the software to its advantages by using the different types of guidelines for the images and also for when you are writing the text, and this allowed my contents page to come out quite neat and tidy.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
