Magazine analysis

For the tasks three of my media assignment, my task was to produce a front cover and contents page of a college magazine. This was to show my skills I have learnt from task to on how I can create a simple magazine. Before creating my LSC college magazine I conducted thorough primary research on how college magazines would you trade and a different kind of techniques used to display the magazine to niche audience.

Firstly I found that many of the magazines had images of students who looked very intelligent and sociable with smiles across their face. This gave a message to the readers that college life was fun and an enjoyable experience and that it also made the college its self-look good. Furthermore I also found that the images of the models were not a full body length shot but more of a medium-close up shot image of a student.

The Key elements I noticed was the picture itself focussed on how the student dressed and what he or she was holding and their surroundings, such as being dressed smartly in the latest trends as well as books in their hands and I.D. badges around their necks. The images were of professional looking students and expressed how they would expect an ‘ideal student’. The models were also directly looking at the audience which showed use of direct contact! In addition the colour scheme creators used often represented the college’s logo. And their theme.

In my opinion I believe that producing a magazine for the first time went very well for me, I produced an eye catching front cover and an interesting DPS.  To start off, I had to plan out how I wanted my college magazine to look which meant I had to structure the layout of the front cover and the theme I wanted to give my readers a unique feeling in reading my magazine. Secondly, I on numerous occasions took various photographs of students doing casual activities they would be doing in college I took a variety of photos with students participating in different activities and in different settings with use of Mise en scene being different in every photograph. The places I took photos in were in the field, canteen and the streets and also took photos of students in solo position.

Front cover

The task sheet specification insisted on a body shots of model. My front cover had an image of myself. I made the image my front cover as it was a long shot and it showed ever high from head to toe.  After editing my picture I chose to filter my photograph to black-and-white this was due to the lighting of the image being very dark and yellow and didn't look very pleasing so making it black-and-white made I it look much better and the text (subheadings, sky lines, cover lines and masthead) which were all on the top of the main image w made the text stand out and eye catching. In addition I placed the barcode at the bottom of the page on the front cover so that customers will be able to see the price quickly without hassle and it's a place where most barcodes are placed so people will always look at the bottom for it.

The set price my magazine would be sold for was at £3.99 although not shown till scanned at the till. I think that this is a fairly reasonable price and many magazines sold in stores are priced similarly or at a higher price. I also put in this price as I have stated that the magazine will come with free coupons. I think that the free coupons would most likely draw the attention of consumers, this may also conclude that I will get more copies of magazine sold.

 I asked for feedback from my class friends and I had gotten a variety of positive feedback. The negative aspects were that the colour scheme look dark and dull therefore it looked very boring and the contents page had no lay out to the way it was structure.

However I do think that I should have used the others photos I took as the main image however, I did not make them as medium close up photos.