Friday, 21 October 2011

Student Magazine - Front Page

These are images of my final college magazine front cover and contents page.



I have made them 'match' by using the same colour scheme and font.
I have made small changes to the original ideas on the flat plan as it was difficult to actually fit it all in ledgibly.To make the pages I combined good ideas from my reasearch and improved on areas i thought it did not have. For example,I noticed that the magazine I looked at did not have separate sections for the articles, regulars and features, in the contents page. On recognising this, I decided to include this in my own contents as I think it would be a more effective as it makes the main features of the issue stand out therefore easier to find if someone found the issue wanting to know more about articles on the front page. I took aboard the idea of using appropriate language to describe my articles to appeal to students, e.g Regulars, all the familiar faces. I also liked the idea of having a little intro piece written by the editor, so I incorporated this idea into my magazine in order to let the reader feel they know the writer, get an overall idea of what the issue is about and makes the reader feel more involved. "hello to all new students!" is the welcome message i used for my magazine it's in larger font so it stands out. It's a nice way to reach readers that have not seen the magazine before, as it directly speaks to them and welcomes you, like a book series where some people may not have read the previous books so there is an introduction to let people know what it's about so they dont put the book down as they don't understand whats happening. Another thing that i thought was lacking from the magazine i looked at, was pictures to show what the articles were about, it's okay saying the article heading and and breif sentence but you dont know what to expect, so i used my own original photos to help the reader know what was in the magazine. using pictures is more eyecathing and you dont have write lots of infomation to try describe the article which would waste space, they also emphasize and prove infomation in the text. For example, i used a photo to show what was in the article "style in season". The information about the articles says " hottest autumn looks for small prices" without the picture we do not know what the writer thinks hot is and you may not believe the statement as it's your own opinion what a small price is. Using the photo in this case, therefore shows the reader exactly what the writer means, shows you what is included in the outifit as you dont know if it's just an item. The main reason i chose to use pictures is because i wanted the main features of the magazine to stand out as there is a lot of text there and i used them to prove the text. For example the picture i created for student discount, if it was not included in the contents , in the magazine i would think that it is just an advertisment and less likely to think about it, on the contents page , it is easier to find for students who may be looking for advice and help for students and the picture tells you exactly what the offer is and what kind of transport. Overall i think the articles and infomation about them that I chose were appropriate and would appeal to students because i did throughrough reaseach into the features of a real uni magazine and created a 'student reader profile' that supported the information on articles gatherd from the magazine.

The design and front cover.
As previously mentioned, i used a colourscheme and font to match the front cover and contents page. I made the decsion on using blue as i knew i needed a colour that stod out from the magazine reasearch i saw that using pink was very effective and that i noticed in my reader profile that a lot of items where blue. Also young people tend to enjoy socialising and if you think about it most social networks sites also use blue, therfore showing that it a colour that students are familar with and can relate to. I used black and white a long with this as the black stands out against the white and i needed colours that were quite general and not associated with a certain gender as my target audience were students.
The magazine that i looked at did not have a MCU it only had the magazine logo . this is effective in making that stand out but gives little information about the issue. Therefore i decided to include an appropriate MCU to show what was in the magazine as i felt that a student magazine could include a variety of articles, a picture will help establish if the information within the magazine is relevant to the reader. I put the picture in black and white as i thought it blended in better with the white background as i felt there was too much space, this also in turn, enabled the text of the main articles really stand out to the reader, which i feel is important, as the white box surrouding the text contrasts with the blackness of the picture. I think that if the image was in colour, it would look too busy and the text would not stand out as the box would be lost with with paler colours. the front cover looks simple but is effective this way using purely 3 colours, which ,now i look back at the front cover of the magzine research, also have a main colour and black and white (and i just noticed it used a black and white photo) and it itself really caught my attention.

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