Media- College Magazine Evaluation

For this task I was required to design and create the front page of a college magazine featuring all the associated connotations of that magazine genre. One of these had to be done with desk top publishing and another on Photoshop. I also had to design a mock-up of a contents page to show the layout.

I created my own Individual blog on the internet where I would show the progress of my work and upload pictures to show the stages of my work, with small explanations along the side.
I started off be analysing many different types of magazines such as NME, Time, and Vogue. All these magazines are different genres and therefore appeal to different target audiences. So there are certain conventions that these different magazines genres have to appeal to their target audiences. I looked at how the language of these magazines is communicated. I used LIIAR (language, Institution, Ideology, Audience, and Representation) which gave me a clearer insight as to what I should be looking for.

I noticed that College magazines generally feature one or few students in medium close-up with a masthead that uses an appropriate letter style. There is also a main cover line that is placed more central of the page and cover lines along the left and right hand side of the page; these tell the reader about what is featured inside the magazine.

I then analysed the conventions of a Contents page. I noticed that it is usually ordered numerically with small headings a brief descriptions. The aim of a contents page is to help the reader navigate through the magazine. Therefore, I made sure that when creating mine I features all of these conventions.

After this, I created a mock up of both a college magazine and a contents page, using publisher to design the layout of these pages and where abouts the information and images would be featured etc. For my final college magazine, I used my digital camera to take pictures of a few college students holding guitars in medium close up shot. I then opened the image in Photoshop and edited it onto an appropriate background. I placed a masthead along the top of the magazine which is called ‘College’ using large lettering with appropriate colouring that is noticeable against its background. The masthead denotes what type of magazine it is and the audience that it will appeal to.

This type of magazine is most likely to be read by college students, therefore when designing my front cover I wanted to use an interesting image and headline that would be of interest to the reader. The headline reads ‘Here comes the sun’ this is a pun on the background colour of the magazine but it also a song. Therefore, it denotes the type of music that the featured band would be playing. When deciding on my background colour I chose a sunburst colour, the connotational meaning of these colours is hot. This could mean that this magazine is so good, its hot!

I used the colours red and white for the cover lines featured on the front page. I made this choice because I felt that they would be the most visible against the colours that it is overlapping. One of the cover lines reads ‘Bring Back The Beatles!’ which makes it an interesting cover line through the sue of alliteration.

The mise en scene of a typical college magazine shows a college student typically dressed in a way that makes them instantly recognisable as a college student. In most photographs of college students, they feature technical codes that are representative of a student. E.g. they are most likely to be photographed in a learning environment or some sort of college scene, holding books or taking part in some sort of sporting activity wearing sporting clothing. The denotation of this would be that they are a college student. It is the Ideology of these sort of magazines to display a positive message to its readers about the college. The college is supposed to represented in a certain way that makes it appealing to its readers. I feel that I have successfully challenged these conventions on the front page of my college magazine.

Overall, I was pleased with the final product and feel that I have successfully fulfilled the Ideology of my magazine. I have included all the conventions of this magazine style and communicated the language successfully to my target audience.