college magazine evaluation

Evaluation

During this project I created a front page and contents page of a college magazine, aimed at the students that would be going to the college. It was the preliminary task to the music magazine and it has really helped me develop my skills with Photoshop and shown me how certain magazines should have a certain layout.

I aimed it at the students so the age band would be 16-18 years old. I tried to overall make it sophisticated but not so much that it’s uninteresting to read. I tried to make it appealing to both girls and boys by including things that would attract both genders, for instance the media trip to comic-con should attract boys but the information that could potentially be revealed about the teachers should interest every girls typically ‘nosy’ side, along with the photo gallery. I also feel the colour I have chosen (red) is quite good for either gender, as its not specifically aimed at either like pink and blue are.

 The issue I have made is slightly media orientated, as one of the main coverlines is a media trip to America, however the competition also shown is to win Glastonbury festival tickets, which would appeal to anyone with a love of music.  The target audience is the college goers in general and I believe I have appealed to them well by including things that are interesting like the NUS extra card and the upcoming events that they have to look forward to. The competition is also aimed at younger people because it’s to a festival. I didn’t want it to be aimed at teachers or parents because they aren’t the people who the actual college is aimed at.

My front cover photo is a close up of a girl behind a psychology magazine. You can tell she is smiling behind the magazine due to the shape of her eyes. She is reading a psychology magazine, which gives the impression she is clever, as do her glasses. The connotations of this image are fun, happiness, knowledge, cleverness, studying, joy and innocence.  The title ‘Academic’ further shows the knowledge that can be gained in college, as does the reflection of books in the models glasses. I like my college magazine but if I was to improve it, I could have put on more coverlines so you get a larger hint at what’s inside. After showing the magazine to my friends the replies for improvement were that I should have put the competition on the front in a box. It would have made it more eye catching and obvious that it actually was a competition and not just another coverline. Another enhancement for making my magazine better would be including more information in my coverlines, as some of them could be rather cryptic as to what they involve. For the contents page everyone really liked the layout, as it was clear and easy to find the page you wanted but it was a bit too sparse and could have done with more photos to advertise what the college was really like.

I was asked to try to include different fonts or colours to make my contents page more interesting and I think I achieved this without making it look a bit tacky. I also included a photo of the college sign to really show which college its for and to create a sense of welcome as it’s the entrance sign.

Overall I feel like I have created quite a good magazine, which I feel looks professional and interesting and appeals to my target audience, the students.