College Magazine

Evaluation

How Does My Magazine Represent Particular Social

Groups? – The CoverThe student pictured, is relaxed and wearing her own clothing, this connotes that she is comfortable in her environment and is not being forced into her task. Having questioned members of my target audience as part of my research, they made it clear to me that they do not want to consume any media that feels to manufactured or “tries to hard” to capture their attention.

Throughout each stage of the production process my decisions have been based upon the responses of my target audience. I aimed to represent the social group of students. In particular, 16-19 year olds.

Using Photoshop, I was able to removing an imposing piece of wood from behind student. This created a much lighter and therefore more positive feel for the magazine. It also makes the environment the student as working in a more spacious one. Having a wider space, may also be associated with freedom. Freedom is something that many students would like to have. By providing this imagery, I am demonstrating how my magazine aims to listen and understand students, rather than belittle them.

The font (with the exception of the masthead) is entirely sans serif. This is because after speaking to students, I was told that they wanted a more modern magazine that they would want to read, rather that a traditional style that they would have to read. Traditionally, most academic or older texts (that students have to read) are written with a serif font style. Therefore, by choosing a sans serif font, there is a feel of modernization associated with the magazine as well as a more informal identity.

Not all teenaged students feel included when the focus is on academic areas. Others may choose to identify as more creative and expressive individuals. I felt this could be better integrated into the magazine by reflecting the views of those students in a way that would be represent them. I decided that the masthead was the best place to capture this creativity. Like the artwork that would be produced by creative students, the masthead needed to be easily identifiable as part of a magazine and provide further implicit meaning. The title font looks as though it as been stenciled and sprayed with paint as opposed to typed. This is a representation of the artistic and creative personalities that help to make up a wide range of the 16-19 demographic.

How Does My Magazine Represent Particular Social

Groups? – The Contents PageThe pictures used show various places that students can interact with other individuals or purchase various goods and items for themselves. Many 16 – 19 year olds feel alienated by a magazine that is too academically minded. By not including pictures of classrooms and leading with very social and “adult” environments, I am continuing to portray an informal feeling surrounding the magazine. This also should help to build confidence within the target audience is they will be listened to and treated with a great deal of maturity as a consumer.

The contents page, similar to the cover, contains some very “straight-talking” language. Although students wanted an informal magazine, I felt using puns in the contents titles may appear to childish to an audience of “young adults”. Instead, the language is to the point and no adaptions or explanations that may “insult the intelligence” of the target audience.

Once again, using Photoshop, I was able to remove a chip-box from this table. The result is that the table looks cleaner and is ready for a new student to eat at. The picture is also taken from a first person perspective, to give the impression that the reader of the magazine is sitting at the table.

The colour scheme, font and folio positioning is consistent, which provides a more professional feel. Again, providing the young adults with a product that looks a high quality means that they to will begin to respect the magazine as a significant brand. The house style also helps to establish the brand as a serious publication for young adults, as children’s publications are more likely to have humorous fonts in a random display of colours and styles in order to retain the short attention span of the younger audience.

The overall content and the order that they appear in was established as a result of my research questionnaire. “Student Jobs” and “Gigs” were the two most common requests to appear in the magazine by the target audience. Therefore, these have appeared first in the list of contents. Items that did not rank so highly, or that one or two students said they didn’t want appear further towards the back of the magazine.

An increasing number of 16-19 year olds, are most likely to consume and interact with media online using various pieces of technology. They may choose to do similar with this magazine. Therefore I have included web and social media addresses in order to extend the reach of the magazine and increase the number of readers.

What Aspects of My Work Am I Pleased With?

After sharing my finished front cover and contents page with members of my target audience, I was presented with a variety of positive feedback.

Remarks related to my colour scheme were amongst the most positive from my target audience. The use of red, white and blue made the magazine really bold and able to stand out from a distance. I too, felt as though this was a good choice of colour as it made the magazine appear fresh and vibrant whilst avoiding colours that members of the target audience disliked, when I carried out my questionnaire.

The Mastheads on each of the pages also received good feedback. My target audience felt that the bold and contrasting red and white colours help to make it more identifiable. This will help the brand and the magazine itself when it comes to being noticed over other magazines on the market. The font style was even considered “creative” in one review. This shows that I was successfully able to convey the right messages to the audience as this was exactly why I had chosen the font style I have.

The font styles I have used are clear to read and easy for the audience to understand. No member of my peers stated that they felt belittled or patronized in any way. This is a positive as any negative response from the language used could impact upon how the audience interact with the product. For example, if a member of the audience feels insulted or offended by any content in the magazine, then the perceptions on my entire target audience could be affected. As any feedback associated with the text or language already in the magazine was positive, I feel confident that this will add to the positive and mature connotations a aimed to create.

Personally, I am most pleased with my cover masthead, as I feel that in conveys all the messages I set out to achieve, in terms of professionalism and modernization. I was able to adhere to further codes and conventions of a magazine, by including a strapline, issue number, date and price. All of which are what I feel to be at an appropriate size and placement upon the page.

What Aspects of My Work Could be Improved?

It is clear from the response of my peers, that there is a lot of room for improvement upon various elements of both the cover and contents page. Most of the improvements suggested for my cover page, were graphical rather than any changes to the text. Only one person suggested that more text would be beneficial for the cover. The justification for this, was that more cover lines may encourage more students to by the magazine if they where unsure about doing so already. I agree with this and would include at least one or two more topics within the cover lines of the magazine.

The image on the cover is an aspect of the work that also received some negative feedback. Some people felt that direct-address from the student in the picture would help to create a better connection between the magazine and the audience. This connection is something I feel would benefit the magazine, especially if I want them to feel both comfortable and believe that the magazine puts its audience first and understands their wants and needs.

A resounding criticism came from the font sizes and the fine-alignment of the text on the contents page. In particular, it was recommended that the “Regulars” and “features” text could be made bigger and bolder to make them more recognizable upon the page. This is something that could be easily implemented if I were to redo the task and could be done without a vast impact upon the formatting for the rest of the page. This means that the would still be room for the range of different content to cater for the needs of the different audiences, but also make said information more accessible for them. Fixing the misaligned text, would also help maintain the mature and professional image that my magazine is aiming to achieve.

Personally, I believe that the picture on the cover could have been edited better to a much better standard. However the location the picture was taken, later added to such editing difficulties. Therefore, the magazine could be improved if the picture was taken in a better location. For example, making sure the blue wall was the entire background as opposed to any imposing structures such as the wood block that had to be edited out of this picture.

Thank You