Evaluation

Evaluation of my College Magazine

To create the front cover of my college magazine, I used a 12 megapixel camera to take some photographs that will be used in the creating of my front cover.

I had a few initial ideas for the front cover of my college magazine.  I had originally planned to have the masthead ‘WYKE’ appearing in the colour purple to match the logo so people would clearly recognise what college my magazine is aimed at. I had also planned for my college magazine to have an orange background so it would be bright and would stand out to the audience however after thinking about it, it would show no indication as to what college it was informing people about and also the purple masthead would contrast with the colour of the background. Instead I decided to have a purple background with the masthead being white; the theme of Wyke College is still then shown.

On my front cover, I have included the date and price to inform people how much my magazine would cost and also to notify them if my magazine has any relevance to current issues so that they would know if it was worth buying. I have shown both of these in white font as it is visible and stands out clearly for the audience to see. I have placed them underneath the masthead as the audience don’t have to look far to find them.I have also included some cover lines on the front. At the top right corner of the magazine I have advertised for the college party which takes place at Pozition. I have written this in a bright pink font as it matches the logo for Pozition and people can instantly identify this. I have then included that NUS cards are on sale for £11. This will be important for students as it is the main purpose for use of discounts so this would gain their interest. This gives a clear indication of what is going on and will inform the audience a bit about what is happening. I have taken a photograph of someone playing chess and placed it in the bottom left to notify the audience about a tournament that is
taking place. I have written ‘Friday 18^th November, Don’t Miss Out!’ in a yellow

font so that it appears bright and people can easily spot it. I would also like this to persuade people to purchase this magazine by identifying that there is a competition and by finding out about the competition they will have to buy the magazine.

I have included the issue number at the bottom left of the magazine as this helps the audience to identify how many issues there have already been of this magazine.

When preparing the image for my magazine, I took a lot of photographs around the college, such as the entrance, the buildings, the library, inside the library and all around college. This was for the background. I then focused on taking a photograph of a college student as it says in the brief to be on the front cover as a medium close up.

I have taken a few photographs and testing them with different backgrounds as well as testing different backgrounds on the same image. I then decided on a photograph of a Wyke Student, with his arms in the air to appear like a really happy student. I wanted to convey this message on the front cover of my magazine as I want people to buy the magazine and know that good things are going on inside the college. My initial ideas were to have a student sitting at a desk studying, but when I tried this out it didn’t look very good he either looked at the camera which looked unrealistic or looked into his studying material which didn’t grip the audience to magazine.

I have placed a barcode at the right bottom corner of my front cover, as if it was to be sold, the shop selling it would need a barcode to scan the magazine in order to know how many issues had been sold.

I decided to place an anchorage on the front cover of my magazine just placed above the main image, ‘It’s all about the preparation!’ After thinking about this for a while I finally decided on this slogan as it was catchy and quite memorable. I think this makes the audience think about college work and exams, and gives informs them that that within the magazine will be information to help them balance their college work and how to concentrate.

Overall I think the front cover of my college magazine works really well because I have used a range of different colours and all the colours work together instead of blend in to one mess of colours.  I have also used a range of different fonts to help give the cover variations instead of having it look all the same. If I had more time, I think I would maybe change the layout of the cover as it could look more realistic with the image directly underneath the masthead and the cover story lines on the opposite sides. However I decided on the original layout as I think it still works well and the cover story lines are clearly seen.