Evaluation

Evaluation on College Magazine

Our task was to create a front cover and contents page for a college of our choice, in which the cover would include a photograph of a student in medium-close up shot, a masthead and appropriate text. Before I could create my magazine cover I needed to research into conventions of magazine covers/contents pages and also review existing college magazines. This helped me by showing me what I needed to include in my final magazine cover and my draft for a contents page.
                 I created mock-ups and drafts of front covers and tried to include the most important conventions of a magazine cover. I then gained feedback and created a final magazine cover. I received further feedback and then improved my cover again. First of all I experimented with logo’s/ magazine names that would act as the masthead of my product. I created two different logos that I first used in my drafts ‘Wyke news’ and ‘Freedom’. After receiving feedback I decided to use ‘Freedom’ in my final magazine as it links to the motto of Wyke college (‘Freedom to achieve’) However, after further feedback I realised my masthead/ slogan was not appealing to my target audience. I decided to keep the same logo but add a border to it so it stood out to the viewer. I also changed the ‘freedom-agazine’ to the proper word ‘magazine’ and enlarge it so it would be clearer to the viewer as to what the product is. My masthead in my final design includes the magazine logo/ title and the company logo (Wyke) to show whose magazine it is. Unlike existing magazines I did not include the date/ price in the masthead. I realised that my college magazine would not be displayed in any shops and so information does not need to be included at the top to see behind other magazines.
            I then took my images for the magazine. I decided to use the medium close-up shots as main images in my drafts to fit into the brief. In my final piece I also used some of my images as thumbnails that could relate to articles inside the magazine. I inserted captions underneath the images to show what they are about. After feedback I also included a banner on the front cover to entice people into reading the magazine. ‘Win- tickets to see Rihanna’ may encourage people of this age to pick up the magazine as they may get the chance to see a famous pop star. I created my house style to fit into the logo and colours of the college itself. For example, I used the colours green and purple throughout my front cover/ contents page as these are the colours used in the logo and other publications created by Wyke. I also used a similar font to the wyke college logo for my logo ‘Freedom’.  I then used this font for the price/ date and also headers on the contents page. By using a similar design to wyke’s this would show to the viewers that this magazine is associated with the college.
          The institution that I would use to produce my magazine is Wyke college. I have decided this after realising that using a bigger magazine company to produce my magazine would be unrealistic. My magazine is only focussed at a small target audience in only one area of the UK and so it would cost a lot of money to produce. My magazine is also free and would be funded by the college itself using fundraisers.
          My magazine has been created to represent students age 16-19 at the college. I made the front cover so that it would include both fun articles for the students but also show their hard work and achievements at the college. This would show that the college is a fun place to be but would also keep to the achieving morals of the college. The purpose and message of my magazine links to the motto of the college ‘freedom to achieve’, by showing ‘freedom’ (e.g. ‘win- tickets to see Rihanna’) but also achievement (e.g. ‘High science results achieved’). The audience of my magazine is students age 16-19 year olds but also teachers/ parents of the students. Therefore I created my magazine so that it would attract my main audience but also be suitable for other adults.