8. Contents page

8. Rough layout of magazine front cover

7.

6.

Price/Publish

This magazine will be two pounds and published once a week. The reason for the price is because the main buyers of the magazine are students. The cost should be reasonably cheap but not to under-priced, as students may not have allot of disposable income and need to buy items like books, notepads, pens etc. If student’s parents are of a low income, a high price would not be ideal. The magazine should be affordable with an appropriate gap between publish dates. The magazine shall be published once a week for a number of reasons. Firstly, new events and subject matters come around weekly. Secondly, two pounds to spend a week isn’t too expensive for students to afford. Also, it would be hard to publish different and continuously interesting magazines every day, as relating back to the first reason.

5.

Target Audience for my product

The target audience for my magazine will be for male and females, primarily around the 16 to 19 age range, but generally any slightly younger persons (considering joining Wyke) and even parents or jobseekers looking to see what Wyke has to offer e.g. P.E. job. The 16-19 people would read the magazine to find out more about subjects, leisure activities and college events.

Demographics

Gender and age: Male and female, Primary 16-19

S.E.G.: C2, D and E

Physiographics

VALS (value life styles): Outer-directed, outer and inner-directed, college students looking to be successful, achieve and get involved

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Self actualisation, esteem, social

Grimsby institute for further and higher education Magazine

Front cover

Masthead: The masthead is large, bright and looks unique to the specific magazine. It definitely looks modern, just like the style of the magazine is modern

Main image: By the main image, I can tell that this magazine represents and is intended for youths and teen audiences. The whole scene looks very urban and modern. The strapline ‘word on the street’ also appeals the audience.

Images: The background images are of students, therefor relating to the theme. But generally they’re just standing around, therefor don’t illustrate the articles. Additionally, the images to the right of the contents aren’t labelled or linked to a page number. Therefore, they too seem random.

Colour/house style: Main colours used seems to be blue and white (with the exception of a few other colours to make it look less bland), and is used throughout. The layout looks professional and the same couple of fonts are used throughout.

Articles: On the front cover, there are articles clearly shown and described to give the reader a taster of what’s inside. On the next two pages, there are introductions to the magazine, more articles, contents, and descriptions on almost exactly what they are.

Anchorage: The anchorage in this magazine is solid. The theme and contents are made clear by the headings, images and modern theme. In my opinion, just looking at the images and text, puts you in the right mind set for this kind of magazine.

Price and barcode: There is no price and barcode shown the front cover. It may be on the back

Competitions/teasing concepts: There are none; however there are some publications on to how to contact the website, number

Message/morals/values: The magazine focuses on what Grimsby Institute has to offer in terms of options, and how the Grimsby Institute can offer help, information and advice.

Target audience: The target audience would be for anyone in or out of the institute, trying to learn more about it or perhaps to keep up to date on opportunities.

Representation: This magazine represents teens and students in higher education in a positive light. It shows how they are active and want to be involved.

Market research on existing college magazines

East riding college magazine: Student life front cover

                                                                 

 

 Masthead/title: Big, bold, contrast white title with black background, stands out

Main image: As the magazine is called and about student life, the main image does not represent student life in any way. It is dull and bland, the people are facing away from the camera, so there is neither any action nor expression is shown. Also, there is no text to go with the image, so the reader has no clue what it represents. The main image does not relate to the magazine.

The ident/logo is shown clearly which indicates the origin of the magazine.

Images: the images are supposedly of relation to the subjects in the magazine, but there is no text near them to indicate which. They are not in the same alignment. The layout is inconsistent and scattered.

Colour/house style: The colour scheme on the front cover is consistent but still rather bland. I would think that bright colours would represent bright and exciting students, as this magazine is about student life. The font also un-necessarily different. The font for ‘Student Life’ is in Times new roman; a very old fashioned and plain font for portraying student life. The colour and house styles are inconsistent on the contents page. The contents are green and look completely out of place and font is not the same. There is no structure and it does not look professional. 

Articles: The front cover only shows an image that is hardly relevant to the product. There are no articles or even a main headline or story. The titles of pages on the contents section clear to see and in correct order. However most of the subjects are unclear and hard to know what they mean. For example, one of them is ‘do you dare face the guy?’ How is the reader supposed to know what that means?

Anchorage: There are no images or captions, or anything which reveals any subjects discussed in the magazine on the front cover. The images do not illustrate or represent the subjects in any way because there is no text to tell the reader what they represent.    

Price and barcode: Along the top right of the image, it says ‘free’ which indicates that this magazine is free.

Competitions/teasing concepts: The front cover only shows one image, and if there are any competitions in the contents, they are not made clear by the un-specific titles.  

Messages, morals, values: The title ‘student life’ indicates that the magazine touches upon everything that students go through and take part in college such as studying, enrichments, sports teams etc. but the random images, unclear main image and contents titles, I cannot tell.

Target audience: The target audience for this magazine would be teens and students in general, but the contents are unclear and there is no anchorage, so I cannot specify the audience.

Representation: Again, the lack of specifics and annotations of images make the representation unclear, apart from being about students.

The front cover gives no insight onto what the magazine will contain, and the contents page gives no detail. Therefor this magazine would be hard to read, and it would prove hard for readers to find what they might be looking for in the magazine.

3.

My choice of college is Wyke. I have chosen it because it matches perfectly with the aim of my product. For example, a subject on my magazine is sports activities, and Wyke has many football teams. The target audience matches as well, because there are many students who take up hobbies, sports and activities in and around the college.

2.

LIIAR Analysis of my product

My product is a front cover of a Wyke college magazine.

My product needs to contain:

Main headline: Main story or subject for my magazine

Photograph of a student: Medium close up, only showing head and shoulders (must relate to the main headline)

Articles and sub-stories: with thumbnail images that illustrate other articles

Anchorage: use captions to draw attention to articles

The product must contain an appropriate masthead and text in a consistent house style (same few fonts, colours and positioning’s) images to back up sub stories and articles. The house style must be consistent throughout so it is easily recognisable and more professional. Additionally, free gifts and competitions. For example in one corner of the page there would be a caption with a sports tournament with prizes on offer. The product must also contain a price and barcode if this is a paid for magazine.

The audience of my magazine is for students who enjoy leisure or sporting activities in and out of college, for example my magazine would tell about various college societies, sports and activities to take up, and information on subjects. Based on that, the messages and morals my magazine would give would be to encourage students be active and try new things. Anyone looking for new activities to take up, new on current ones, find out more about the college and find information on various matters e.g. college football teams, enrichments, subjects would be the ideal audience for this magazine. The primary audience is college students between 16 and 19. However, secondary audiences could include younger people looking to join Wyke, or even parents and adults looking for work, so they can find out the various subjects and activities Wyke have to offer.

I intend to represent the college students as positively as possible and accurate e.g. real college sports and real student opinions etc. The subjects discussed in the stories and the images on it will be real, so the magazine will represent the students based on their opinions and the activities they do.

Preliminary exercise

using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close up, plus some appropriatly laid-out text and masthead. Additionally, you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp od DTP.