Final Copies and evaluation.

Our brief states that we had to create a cover page for a college magazine and a mock-up of a contents page- which I then designed. I decided to call my college magazine 'Wyke Entertainment' which I then abbreviated to 'W.E'. I wanted a name that would appeal to my target audience of students aged 16-18 that attend Wyke College. This abbreviation really means 'whatever' in cyber language, so I thought that this would be a good way to draw in attention. The colour of the masthead is a bright purple colour. Purple as I have already mentioned in an earlier post gives connotations of success, which makes it a perfect choice for a college magazine. As well as this it maintains the house style of the college website, which will help make the magazine instantly recognisable to students. The font that has been used for the masthead is made from block squares, which gives connotations of cyber and technology- which students will recognise, appreciate and easily relate to. I think that by using this font it gives the magazine young, fresh and funky associations to it. I am glad that I outlined the masthead in black as it does make it stand out from the background. Because we were taught to read from the top left of the page; this was a perfect place to position my masthead as it is the first place people look.

The main image I used is a student dressed in smart, casual clothes smiling. This gives the college a positive representation as she looks as if she is genuinly having a good time at college. The pose the model is doing is neutral, she is just stood there as if she was stopped walking to her next lesson at college. i chose to do this in order for the main image to stop looking too fake.The students in the background help with this too. The girl has a folder- causing her to look ready to learn. The black folder gives a professional connotation to it and reflects the black of the headlines and article titles. I like the way the college campus is in the background as it shows off the facilites at the college, and gives a modern, expensive feel to my magazine cover- without taking too much attention away from the female student.

The headline is super-imposed over the students torso which instantly draws attention to it when people look at the main image. It is written in black which contrasts the colours of the background. The colour black is usually used in order to connote power or strength. I used a block, bold font which gives it a professional edge, without being too formal. The captions under the headlines are in either green or purple which again establishes the house style of the college website and makes the magazine seem more organised and put together as appose to random or tacky.

I followed the usual conventions of a college magazine and included a website at the bottom of the magazine- allowing the students to gain further knowledge. As well as this, the magazine cover is dated. This was done to allow my target audience know if the information or advice the magazine is giving them is valid or necessary. I also used a bar-code in the bottom right to establish how many issues were being distributed to the students. I used the same colours all the way through my magazine, and I also decided to use similar fonts for anchorage. In my opinion I think that this gives my text a prestigious quality to it, whilst still maintaining to relate to my target audience.

If I had to re-do my cover the first thing I would do is to get more input from my target audience. Although I did do a questionnaire, I could have gotten students to comment on my finished product in order to make my text more relatable to my peers. I think that my cover isn't too busy and has the right amount of things super-imposed onto the background, although I would have liked to play around a lot more with the layout and maybe create something unique or completely different from a college magazine.



Overall I am really happy with the way my contents page turned out. I eventually settled on using a DTP of a building on the college campus as my background as it could remain constant every time a new magazine is brought out- this would mean the magaizne is recognisable to students. It also creates an organised look. I placed a purple square with curved edges for a modern twist on the left hand side of the page. The purple maintains the house style, wheras the box creates attention which is why I decided to put the contents of the magazine in this box. The colours of the articles use blue, white, purple and greens which maintain the house style the cover has established. If I had to re-do this task however I would have made the titles stand out more, possibly by fading the background image, or brightening the font. I would do this because the text doesn't really stand out as much as I would have liked, and almost gets lost in the background image. The numbers of the pages are large and bold which draws the eye of the reader and ensures they don't waste time searching through the magazine for the thing they want to read.

The photos on the right hand side of students are aesthetically pleasing and help give a positive representation of the college. As well as this they create an ideology to the contents page. Because they are all smiling they are saying that if you take the advice this magaizne is giving; you too can be happy at college too. The images represent the main articles in the magazine which is a typical magazine convention. The masthead 'Contents' uses the same squared font as the masthead on the cover which obviously makes it look as if they are from the same magazine and not mis-matched like on some of the magazines I analysed.

I tried to use the name of the college as many times as appropiate in the magazine. This was purely to directly address. As the target audience are all students from Wyke College they would relate to the things this magazine is saying. As well as this, it creates an intelligent yet snappy connotations to the headlines 'Hunger strike at wyke' rhymes and could appeal to the target audience more. It is much like a headline in a real newspaper. At wyke college, we have merchandise such as hooded sweatshirts with @ wyke on printed on to them. Therefore by using this phrase it creates a bond between reader and magazine and makes it easily relatable to students.

I used media technologies such as photoshop and a digital camera to capture and edit my digitally taken photographs for this project. This allowed me to gain a more detailed knowledge of how to use these technologies for my main task. It also gave me practice and allowed me to draw and develop my media skills. I learnt a lot from my audience feedback, and without the help of my questionnaire my text wouldn't look the same. This is because I tried to use everything my target audience suggested in order to make it more accessible and something students would actually want to spend free time looking at. I think that my product was effective as I sucessfully did everything in the breif and more. I also feel like I really pinned down what my target audience wanted for a magaizne, and didn't create an ordinary, boring piece of text. I feel like I put my own spin on typical magazine conventions.