As part of my
planning process for my own college magazine front cover I analysed many other
existing products including Vogue and specific college magazines therefore I
could easily take in their similar conventions and apply them to my own front
cover to make it look as professional as possible. I created mock ups of a
magazine front cover, a contents page and a double page spread so that I got a
basic idea of how things should look and where the conventions should be placed.
I made an initial ideas spider diagram and a mood board to help review
different options and I also took pictures of different shot types to find the
best option. I also followed the brief closely as to make sure I didn’t
complete any tasks incorrectly. As a result of research I came to the
conclusion that my magazine should be aimed at college students and their
parents.
I used the typical layout of any other
magazine and it’s very similar as I used real magazines as a main base for my
research so that it would fit with the correct conventions and not look out of
place.
I used a photo of a college student in
front of a college building to fit the whole criteria and added a feature about
her which said ‘Top student goes to Oxford’ which not only explains the reason
she is on the front cover but also makes the college look good. ‘Fresher’s
party images inside!’ and ‘New York trip’s success’ are also featured on the
front as they would be two of the main stories inside the magazine. The
masthead covers a small amount of the top of the front cover and is in a large,
bold font so it is visible. The colours used are purple which fits the whole
colour scheme and makes it recognisable. The date and issue number are placed
underneath the masthead and to the left in a much smaller font because they
don’t need as much attention. I also added a barcode and price to the bottom
right as it’s a main convention to any magazine and can be crucial.
My front cover needed to appeal to all
social groups in a college so I tried to add points which each student/parent
would be interested in. The colour scheme was selected carefully as it needed
to appeal to both genders whereas if I chose pink it’s likely people would have
associated it with girls and if it was blue people would associate it with
boys. The font is also bold and plain therefore appealing to all social
groups/genders.
As I have
mentioned briefly I decided the audience for my magazine is college students
and their parents as I believe it would be more appealing to those as opposed
to anyone else. The features and the fact it’s a college magazine would appeal
more to those people rather than anyone else as I designed the whole project on
what their preference towards certain aspects would be and what they would be
more interested in.
To attract
and address my audience I added points that they would find appealing. As many
students are involved in the Fresher’s party I added ‘Fresher’s party images
inside!’ to attract their attention and make them feel the magazine is
appealing towards them. ‘Top student goes to Oxford’ makes people feel
ambitious and want to succeed throughout college as many students also have an
ambition of going to a successful university therefore using this feature would
appeal to those people.
The shot I
chose for my front cover was a medium close up as it not only shows the
expression clearly on the model’s face but also shows a large amount of her
surroundings and her body language. Medium close ups are often used on magazine
front covers as they show a clear image of the model and usually if a long shot
is used it would be in a fashion magazine so the clothing is visible. I learnt
that putting the model in an appropriate place for the photo can add a good
effect and link the conventions together therefore my model was put in front of
the college building as it’s for a college magazine. The model is smiling which
creates the feeling that the college has a good/happy atmosphere and therefore
makes it more appealing to other people. I barely edited the actual photo; I
only made the model’s face look clearer and changed the folder colour to purple
so that it fit the colour scheme. To make the features and masthead stand out
and readable I added a white glow around the colours and as a result they
didn’t blend into the background too much. Using Photoshop has made editing
photos a lot easier and makes them look more professional. The original photo
that I planned to use wasn’t appropriate for this specific task as the college
sign was visible at the top and therefore made it too difficult to add a
masthead and so I decided that taking another photo and using that would be
much easier and would fit the task’s criteria a lot more.
As a whole I believe that doing the
perfume task made this task much easier as I managed to get practice in Photoshop
beforehand and I feel I know how to make a product look more professional. The
perfume task helped me understand what is expected of the tasks throughout
media studies, what conventions apply to specific aspects of tasks and how to
apply them correctly.
If I could make my front cover
differently I would maybe add a photo that looked more professional and
possibly edit it to make it look a better quality but overall I am happy with
my final result. The research put into the product definitely helped a lot as
without viewing other examples of conventions I wouldn't have been able to make
my own front cover in a realistic way.
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