Results from the magazine questionaire

How much would you pay for a student magazine?













What colour scheme do you think the student magazine should have?

What style of language should the magazine contain?

Should the magazine contain more visual imagery or text?

Should the college magazine use outside sources of information, such as pictures on the internet, music, 

quotes or should the magazine just contain inside sources?

Should the magazine allow taboo content or should it be a strictly college magazine?

What should the student magazine be called?

Should the student magazine use slang?  

    

What should the magazine information contain?

         How often should a new issue of the student magazine be produced? 

The results from the questionaire show that student's want a colourful student magazine, which should also contain relevant information from issues and events around the college. The results also show that student's would like the magazine to be called lethal dosage.

Mock-up (plan) of my magazine front cover and my contents page

Here I have a plan of my front cover and contents page for my magazine, they still need improvement but I will edit and change them after i have evaluated more information and looked at more idea's. 

Magazine Analysis in more detail - "Sixth Sense"

For my second college/student magazine analysis, I have decided to analyse the magazine “sixth sense”, the masthead connotes that the target audience is adolescent college males because the masthead creates a sense of mystery and eeriness which we wouldn’t stereotypically associate with females, however it is still a unisex magazine. The graphics and Layout are predominantly Blue, this connotes that stereotypically the audience reading is going to be male because blue is not a feminine colour. The central image of the magazine is a happy college student, this connotes that college is a fun, good place to be which you can also enjoy, this appeals to a student audience because if students are advertised on the front page enjoying college, then more individuals will most likely take part in college because they want to be part of something. Throughout the front cover and contents page of this magazine the graphics connote urgency to the reader, this is shown through the use of exclamation marks after single words and also the wording used, such as “urgent ,”now” and “hurry”, this appeals to the audience because it’s inviting them to take part. The mode of address this magazine uses is informal/slang language, this connotes that college students prefer to read snippets of text instead of huge paragraphs, this may be especially useful for grabbing males attention because long paragraphs are less likely to appeal to them compared to girls. The graphics in the contents pages, show more pictures of students and the college, this connotes that the college is fun which backs up the initial connotation on the front page, which also reinforces the audiences view.  

Magazine Analysis in more detail - "Tell"

For my analysis of student magazines in closer detail, I have chosen to look at the magazine "Tell", which is a magazine that has been constructed for female students as well as being a gossip magazine for younger females, we can see that this magazine has been constructed through various gender typed Layout, Mis-En-Scene, Font and Language features. The front cover of “Tell” uses a lot of bright colours in the layout, this connotes that the use of brighter colours will interest the female audience rather than a male audience who are more likely to be interested in darker more masculine colours, this initial visual attraction draws the audience in to buy and read the magazine. The masthead connotes that this magazine is for a younger female audience because the masthead, “Tell” appeals to the audiences love for gossip and secrets (Mainly females enjoy this), therefore the masthead serves it’s purpose of getting the magazine noticed. This magazines mode of address connotes a formal tone therefore appealing to the adolescent stage of a females life before they enter their full maturity, as younger females tend to read these kind of magazines to feel older, the magazine also uses graphics which appeal to the younger female audience such as pictures of models, animals and clothing. The central image connotes fun and having a good time, this appeals to a younger female audience because everyone, although especially younger people, like to have fun . The cover lines are two different colours which is practical is enticing readers to look as the smaller articles of the magazine, this connotes that women don’t have enough time to always read everything on the front of magazines and are more prown to scanning items for appealing information. The captions based under the pictures on the front of this magazine mostly express the items above them, using words like ”free” and “win” which connotes to the audience a sense of easy achievement and free items which is likely to be a big factor when buying. Also the typeface/font of this magazine uses contrasting colours, this highlights the written text and draws the audience into reading it.

Analysing the codes and conventions of student/college magazines - Banter

As part of my research and planning for my brief, I have analysed a college and student magazine called "Banter", this magazine follows many conventions that are critical for an interesting and well produced magazine. In the college magazine "Banter", the masthead and the girl's nose are the same colour, this connotes that the colour red is important because it's involved in the whole magazine and also in promoting red nose day in the magazine.  This magazine has a predominantly black and white background on the front cover, this connotes that the background is not as important as the sub-heading's and information on the front which explains red nose day. However, this magazine has a contents page which shows an image of college students in a long shot, this connotes that the college and students are friendly and that they want everyone to be included.

Magazine Analysis

I have chosen to evaluate and analyse the connotations of a popular music magazine (NME) front cover, in order to help me to distinguish the differences and similarities between a student/college magazine and a popular music magazine. This will also give me valuable information and idea’s when making my college magazine front cover.

The masthead is the name of the magazine, it indicates what style or type of magazine it is, it also distinguishes itself from other named brands of magazine.

This magazine is a weekly magazine because a new version of the brand of magazine is produced each week, even though it changes every week, the masthead is kept in relatively the same place which gives the reader a sense of familiarity. However the font’s and colours may change from week to week depending on the aim of the editor, this allows the editor to make the magazine accessible and interesting for different people. The banner will change positions in accordance with what is put in the magazine weekly, for example, some weeks there will be special editions like this one. The magazine uses a female who is attractive in order to target females and males in the adolescene – adult bracket, also the female smoking connotes a sense of danger and of un- responsibility. The shot type is a mid close up, this connotes that the female is on the audiences level which adopts a feeling of familiarity, the female is also at an eye level shot type which connotes that she is an individual and has no higher status than the reader.

Magazines will usually include on the front page, the date the issue was published

For which week commencing, a price and a tag line, this magazine has a slightly different set up from the magazine norm, as it’s price, barcode and it’s date issued is in the bottom right hand corner of the magazine.

Magazines will usually have a main image which is the main attraction to it, this will usually be a central image as shown in this magazine, the female takes up most of the background which is a lure men and females interested in music, the magazine will usually have somebody featured who is high in the media music interest at that moment in time, therefore the image has been cleverly selected in order to grab the audiences attention. This magazine uses a lot of bright colour on the front page, in order to attract the audience, the masthead is the same colour as the females top which allows the audience to see a visual connection between the image and the brand which connotes that the female will be used in the edition.                        

Prelimenary task and action plan

My brief requires me to use DTP and an image manipulation program to produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, this will feature a photograph of a student in a medium close-up and also appropriately laid-out text and a masthead for the page. Im also producing a mock-up of the layout of the contents page, in order to demonstrate my grasp on DTP.
My Action plan covers the next 5 weeks, In the first week of the project i was introduced to the brief which  required me to research the generic conventions of a typical magazine. In the second week, I was required to set up a blog to record my work and research the purposed target audience.  The third week requires me to produce a mock-up of my front cover and contents page whilst beginning to design and plan the real ones. Week four requires me to design the front cover and the contents page as the final pages that i will be using. After the christmas holidays, in week 5 we will be completing our evaluation of the college magazine, where we will correct and indentify different features of our work.

Introduction to Brief

As part of my AS media coursework. the brief selected requires me to create a magazine, including a contents page, front page, glossary and a double page feature spread for a new college/student magazine. I have created this blog in order to record my research, idea's, evaluation and points to improve on, this will help me produce a successful magazine that is informative and fun.