Planning for my own college magazine

After studying the typical conventions of current college magazines and analysing them, I will now begin to plan my ideas for my very own college magazine. Firstly, I will create three possible drafts for the front cover of my college magazine and then choose a desired draft to construct in Desktop Publisher for my final piece. I will also create a mock-up of what the contents page would look like inside my college magazine.


Here are my three drafts for the front cover of my college magazine:


Plan 1


Plan 2


Plan 3


I have chosen to use plan three as the final design of my college magazine and I will complete the task by constructing my front cover in desktop publisher. I will use the images I have taken myself and by adding colour and font to the cover i hope to make it look attractive and appeal to my target audience.

Here is the final outcome of my front cover and contents page:

Magazine Evaluation

When creating the front cover of my college magazine, I had to take into consideration many things in order to appeal to my target audience, convey the right emotion and ideology, and also to look unique, original and also professional.

I firstly incorporated all the necessary conventions that a typical magazine front cover would use to attract an audience. I then altered these conventions in order to suit the particular genre of magazine, which was of course college magazines. After studying and analysing other college magazines, I was able to identify the particular language, ideology, audience and representations used within this genre and apply this knowledge and structure when creating my own college magazine.

The colour scheme of my magazine was mainly Green, Blue and White. I decided to use these colours as they are quite gender neutral, appealing and they make the front cover stand out. The institution Wyke college, has a very competitive market against other colleges, so it is important to use colour to appeal to a younger audience and show that the college has a fun, exciting, sociable environment as well as being educational. The colour scheme would also create recognition amongst their audience, and they may associate those colours with that particular college.

For the Masthead, I used an existing one, however I changed the layout and style in order to be unique and original. The font colour of the Masthead is white which is a good colour to use as it stands out well against a coloured background. The colour white is also echoed in the white headline to create a balance of the colour on the cover.

Underneath the Masthead, I included the date and price of the magazine. This creates an effect of realism and displays key information for the reader. I also added the college website -www.wyke.ac.uk - to look professional and offer the audience further information on the college. In addition I included a slogan for the college, which was a pre-existing one, to add again realism and show the standard of the college.

The headline 'Professional Dancer Hannah Garner Inspires Students At Wyke College' is in white in order to stand out and also look more sophisticated because it is talking about a professional guest at Wyke college. I decided to split the headline into two, so that it surrounds and focuses on the main images of the dancer. Emotive language such as 'inspires' would attract the audience and would invoke positive feelings upon the reader. The use of celebrities in college magazines is not very common to find because the main focus is purely on the students and their education. However in this case it is related to an educational experience, so it can be considered to be appropriate. Celebrity endorsement like this would engage the reader and encourage them to go to Wyke for such educational experiences.

The strap-line ' Follow The Footsteps To Fame' demonstrates the use of alliteration which is appealing and memorable amongst a younger audience. The word fame is also eye-catching to an audience because it is the type of lifestyle most young people are intersted in. The strap-line is a bright yellow/gold colour, which stands out against the background and the colour is generally associated with fame and fortune.

For the main focus of my magazine, I used three images produced by myself, of a fellow student posing as a professional dancer. I used three different images to create a three picture story effect, in order to capture the ever changing movement and motions within dance. The pictures represent the start, middle and end of the performance which adds to the effect. Whilst taking the photos, I had to consider the mise en scene of the image. The location I picked was inside the college gym, which the audience would be able to relate to. The costume was very balletic and easy to move in which also looked professional. The lighting however was quite dark to begin with so with the help of a picture editing suite called Photo shop, I was able to manipulate the image and improve the quality and effect it would have on the audience. I managed to include a spotlight in each of the images which generally symbolises a stage or performance which was rather effective. I also cropped the images to eliminate any unwanted background and kept the main focus on the dancer instead.

Lastly, I included plugs to entice the audience to read on further into the contents of the magazine. Rhetorical questions such as ' Fancy a swim?' immediately involve the reader and draw them in. Alliteration is also shown in another plug ' Well done Wyke!' which again is appealing to the audience and will be 'catchy'.

Over all, I believe that my front cover was quite successful as i took into account the main conventions of college magazines, and had various other effects to attract and engage the reader. There is still a few errors and things I would change if I had to repeat the task again, such as too much detail on the front cover which could distract the reader from the main issue. However I will take this into consideration and improve my skills in the main task which is to create my own music magazine.

Conventions of magazines

Conventions are like rules or guidelines which are often used to make a media text, such as a magazine front cover. These conventions however are altered to suit the particular genre of magazine and appeal to their target audiences.

All magazine front covers have a Masthead. The masthead displays the name of the magazine, and usually has a distinctive style, font or colour to gain originality and also be easily recognised amongst their target audience. The masthead is also usually quite large and bold in order to stand out against the background of the magazine and also be visible from a reasonable distance to attract their audience in.

These are a few examples of current Mastheads:

(Masthead for the NME music magazine)

( Masthead for the Wyke college magazine)

(Masthead for Heat magazine)

Some mastheads usually use the same colours too, so that the audience can relate to the colour scheme and associate those colours with that particular magazine company.

All magazines have headlines which are large, bold and eye-catching. The language used in headlines depends on the target audience, but they are usually short, snappy and colloquial in order for the reader to understand it straight away. Headlines can also use puns, which is a play on words to create humour and intrigue their audience to read on. Accompanying the headline is usually a strap-lines well, to further explain and add any additional information on the cover story.

Magazine front covers also usually have a main image. This is usually the focal point of the front cover, as it shows the main feature of the magazine. The image can be quite large in order to attract their target audience but is also carefully selected to connote emotions or invoke feelings upon their audience. The content of the image is determined by the target audience of the magazine and their interests. Magazines such as 'Heat', 'Grazia' and 'Look' heavily rely upon celebrity endorsement to attract their audience, so their images are mostly of celebrities. The images used of celebrities are usually manipulated to shock their audience and portray the chaos and stress of celebrity life in a negative light. In contrast, college magazines have a very different set of values and beliefs and therefore focus on students instead. This is so that the target audience of students aged 16-18, can relate to the image. The images of students usually portray them having fun as well as being educated.

It is also common for a magazine front cover to include a website, sponsor or logo to further promote the magazine. For example The secondary teachers magazine which I previously looked at displayed this sponsor , which also shows the professional connections of the magazine and that the magazine is a reliable source. This website was also displayed on the front cover , which offers the audience further information on related issues. In addition, dates and prices are also vital on the front cover to display to the audience the time in which the magazine was produced and also the cost of buying the magazine.

Another common convention included in a magazine front cover is the use of plugs. They are used to give a brief insight of the contents of the magazine and are sometimes accompanied by images to further interest the reader. These often tempt the reader, therefore plugs play a very important part in the selling point of a magazine.