Evaluation.

The facing pictures are the finished copies of my student magazine and contents page. To be honest, I am really quite pleased with my front cover. I really like the size of the main picture and the fact that because of its size it really grabs your or the reader's attention. I also am pleased with the way the layout comes across. I think that it fills the cover of the magazine, without actually making it look too busy and cramped, which could make the magazine look unappealing-reducing the amount of readers.
I have to say that I am a little less pleased with the contents page of my magazine than with my front cover. I think that this could be because at the moment there is just mainly writing of where everything would be placed and how it would be set out, and that when the pictures would be put in their places, then I think that it would look a lot better, and a bit less plain and boring. However I also think that it could have a bit more colour in it, rather than just the different coloured fonts. When I next make another contents page I think that I will bear that in mind, and will maybe think about changing the colour of the background of the text boxes, and then have a font colour that will stand out on the background colour. However I like the look, of having the colour scheme of the front cover reversed on the contents page.
Another thing that I think that i think I would probably change or could have done better, would be that I would put a couple or at least one more picture, on my front cover, as even though I am really pleased with it, it could be said that there is quite a lot of writing in proportion to the images. And i think that one more image would balance out the cover a little bit more making it, I personally think, a little more appealing to the audience.

Photographs.

These two are the photographs that I took to use in my student/college magazine. However, the first picture, that I took, I had two students in the photograph, we were then told that it was better, and that we should only have one student in our photographs for our magazines. Therefore I didn't use this photo for my main image on my front cover, of the magazine. When I came across this, I knew there was a really simple way of resolving this problem, which was just simply getting the one of the students in that first picture and then taking the photo of them, on their own. Which is where I got the second photograph from. I used this photograph for my front cover, as this image 'ticked all the boxes' that it needed to, to be able to be on the front cover of my magazine. I used this picture to cover up quite a lot of the front cover, as I thought that a big image on the cover would really capture the reader's attention, and I think that because it is a photo of a student from the college, that some other students may recognize, this could the bring in more readers from my target audience, because they might want to know the reason behind this person/student being on the front cover. When taking this photograph, it was advised, that the photograph that we take, and used on our front cover would be straight on, and also from the shoulders upwards. I think that the straight on angle of the photo is really sharp looking, and also eye-catching, and I believe that this is a good photo to use on the front cover, as it will capture the target audience's attention and possibly intrigue them into reading the rest of the magazine.

Flat-Plans

These are my flat-plans for my front cover and the contents page of my magazine. I drew these to help me at least have an outline or guide of what/how i would be designing my magazine. However throughout the project process there may have been a couple of changes to the original magazine flat-plans.

I chose the font for my magazine, quite easily I would say, because when I knew we were doing a student magazine, you know it has to appeal to the target audience of ages from 16 to 19/20, which made me think I wanted to keep the font and possibly the 'feel' of the magazine quite casual and relaxed. Therefore, hopefully, appealing to the other students, who would want quite a relaxed and informal magazine to read, unlike people/readers of an older age, of something like 35-40 plus.

With the colour scheme of the font colour, as well as the whole magazine, I wanted to use some of the colouring in/around the college, which is why I chose the pale blue, kind of colour, as I thought that it is in the college logo, and therefore relates to the students, my target audience, in a way.

I think one of the hardest things of the front cover designing process, was the layout of all the sells-text and images, main and also others that would be on the cover. I think, it was hard because you have to think about it being appealing to the target audience, but also that you can see everything clearly and that the magazine looks presentable and like a magazine. And I think that even though you have the flat-plans, it does change when you actually are designing the cover and contents page on In-Design, as when you have the actual size of pictures and other sells it becomes a little harder to place everything in the correct places and making sure that it fits in with the other sells on the page. However, I think that after looking at my flat-plan, and refering back to it when designing the cover on In-Design, I got all the elements on my cover in the places they were on the cover or near enough in the right places, which I am pleased about.

With the important information, such as the date, issue number and other things like that, I wanted to make sure that these things could be read quite esily by the reader, rather than them having to search over the cover and the contents page to try and find them. When this came to mind I made sure that I made space at the top of the magazine, in/near the masthead, for the date and issue number, so that they would be one of the first things the reader would read. Then with other information, like price etc. I put these at the bottom of the magazine, I think near the strapline, as again thought it was quite an easy place to find it, rather than have them all mixed up all over the front cover.

With the contents page, I had kind of the same thoughts as when thinking about the font, and masthead designs, I really wanted to keep it simple and casual. As I think that that is possibly what the target audience, would want, I don't think they would want the pages to be really busy and packed with information, that they would want it more relaxed and 'easy to read'. With this in mind, I kept the layout of the contents page, to a minimum, as much as I could. I put down the page number, and what article or topic is where/what page, and then I put a place for a couple images (relating to articles) and a little description of the image, and the page number. I then have the masthead, with the page title, and I also added in the date and the issue number again, with the possibility of putting in a logo or something, as I thought it just carried it on from the front cover, and you also have that information there, if it is needed. Another thing I added to the contents page is a category box, which I think would be helpful as the articles would categorised and this box would contain the different page numbers, that all the categories start on, therefore the audience can just read what bits of the magazine are most important to them first. Also another box, that says who or what is on the front cover and that needs recgonition, for example who is on the cover or wo took the photos or other information like that.

And those are flat-plans of my magazine's front cover and contents page.

Product Brief.

For this AS Media Studies Preliminary Task, I have been asked to produce a magazine for the college. This magazine can be for anyone that is related with the college. For instance, instead of being for the students, this magazine could be for the teachers. I chose to do my magazine for the students, as I thought I would the magazine would be of better quality, as i am a student as well. If i decided to aim my magazine at teachers, then I wouldn't be able to please my target audience, because I, most likely, wouldn't have the same interests as a teacher at the college. Therefore, the target audience for my magazine is students, between the ages of 16 and 19/20. Any younger or older than those ages, then I think that the subjects and events that I would talk about in the magazine, would be irrelevant to them.