Evaluation Of Preliminary Task

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

My Product contains most, if not all,  of the conventions of a real media product including, a puff, masthead, central image, cover lines and a Splash, it also uses a quite commonly used mechanic of magazines, in that the head of a person in the central image slight covers some of the masthead, but not so much that you can't read it.

2. How does your media product represent different social groups?

The central image on the cover of the magazine is of a group of students, who are just standing around, I also  have used students of both genders and a gender neutral colour pallet to show that this magazine is not exclusive to any one gender.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think my magazine would be likely to be distributed by a company that already has a series of other student magazines for other colleges, either that, or the college itself, as it would be distributed properly, plus, if distributed by the college, it would be more likely to get to the students, as it is free and could be in student common areas for it to be picked up.

4. Who would be the audience for you media product?

My magazine is aimed at an audience of students of bother genders, this is a fairly wide audience and as such requires things that would appeal to all members of this audience.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my target audience by featuring members of the target audience in the cover image, this helps them feel that they are close to the people on the cover, thus making them comfortable with the purchase of this magazine.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From the process of creating this product, I have discovered that it is very difficult to compose everything together in one program, and that other programs need to be used to do things, such as, editing the photo to put the masthead behind it and to correct colours and other such things.

Student Magazine Cover and Contents Page

Front Cover and Contents Page Mock-Up

Focus Group Results

What should the name of the magazine be?

Excel
Animated✓✓✓
Moxie✓
Battery

What image should be included on the cover?

3 People stood in a group posing ✓✓
Someone studying✓
Someone enjoying themselves✓

What colours should be used for the house style?

Red, Black and white ✓✓
Blue, Black and Yellow ✓
Green, Bue and Black ✓

What would be an appropriate price for my magazine?

Free✓✓✓
50p
£1✓

What content should be included?

Reviews of films and albums✓✓
Sports ✓
College advice✓

Initial Student Magazine Design Ideas: Contents Page

Contents Page Design Ideas

To ensure continuity between the cover of the magazine and the contents page, the contents page will have to include and primarily be made up of, the same colours that i used for the cover of the magazine.  This sets the house style and makes it look like that the contents page goes with the cover and that it is not just a random contents page stuck in with it.

Content

As well as including the splash and cover-lines from the front cover, I include other stories that might interest my target audience, young people/adults who are currently attending college, so I shall include things that will interest them, such as film reviews, album reviews and recommendations for the weeks TV.

Images

On my contents page, I will include an image of one of the people on the front cover doing something interesting, I will also include an "editorial" section at the bottom of the page that will have a small picture of me and will have a "letter from the editor" talking about the things mentioned in the magazine, and what particularly interests me in this months issue.

Initial Student Magazine Design Ideas: Front Cover

FRONT COVER DESIGN IDEAS

The aim of this blog is to show to design process of creating a student magazine cover and contents page. The target audience of the magazine will be college students, so generally people in their late teens. The language used shall be informal and slight personal, for example saying you and us.

Front Cover

Masthead

• Bold letters
• slightly curved font
• black or white.
• behind person in central image

Magazine name

Relevant to student life/college. Energetic.

• Excel
• Battery
• Animated
• Moxie

These might work at target audience and they all relate to being energetic and are positive. I intend to use a bold, eye-catching font.

Central Image

For my central image I would like to have a group of three people, the one in the middle looking at camera and two slightly below and behind the first, one each side, looking off to the side, as shown in sketch below:

Splash

A splash is the main article in the magazine, so it will have to be something interesting. 

some ideas are:

• You can still have a social life and do your homework, we tell you how.
• We list the top 5 places in Ludlow to get coffee before college.
• Interview with Stacey Thomas on her first month at college.

Cover-lines

Cover-lines give small excerpts from other articles in the magazine.

Some of my Ideas for cover-lines are:

• The best and cheapest places to buy college supplies.
• How to best use you free time for work.

Colours

For my magazine I will use the following colours: Black, White and a Dark Red, these colours allow for a high contrast meaning that my target audience would be more likely to notice them, these colours are also unisex, so they will not stop some people buying it because they are worried it will affect there image.

Research and planning: Analysis of Student Magazine 2

Research & Planning: analysis of Student Magazine 1

Research & Planning: Generic Conventions of Student Magazines

Preliminary Task Action Plan

Over the next three weeks I have a few tasks to complete, including research, design, drafts and compiling of the magazine.

Week 1:

•   Identify Generic Conventions of a student/college magazine.
• Analyse the front cover and contents page of 2 student/college magazines.
• Conduct a focus group to establish what the students want.

Week 2: 

• Using findings from research, produce mock cover and contents page.
• begin design of front cover.

Week 3: 

• Continue work on student magazine, including cover and contents page
• Complete evaluation for homework by the 22nd of October

Introduction To Preliminary Task

For this task i have to create the front page and contents page for a student or college magazine, i have to use both DTP programmes and Image manipulation programmes, so most likely will be Adobe inDesign and Adobe Photoshop. The cover has to include a medium close up image of a student/students and i must include a suitable masthead and logo.