Preliminary Task Evaluation.

Question 1:

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have used similar techniques that other student magazines use, such as the basic layout, and basic colours, and other techniques. 

Question 2:

How does your media product represent different social groups?

Since my magazine was aimed at students, I decided to make it be more appropriate to students as opposed to working adults/non-students by choosing more modern colours that attracted both genders and using students on the magazine itself, I did this so that the students felt more drawn to read it and that it related to them by having the students on there.

Question 3:

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I would suggest it being distributed in places that the students work in alot, for example; a college library or cafe, so that the students can see it on a frequent basis.

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my magazine will be college students aged roughly 16-19, I feel it would appeal to both genders due to the content (gaming reviews and film reviews), but I feel that the front cover would draw in a more female audience than male.

Question 5:

How did you attract/address your audience?

I decided to attract/address my audience by using modern and fresh colours, I even tried to incorporate this when taking the photo, the orange of the photo is vibrant and energetic which relates to the target age of the audience, I also decided to do a promotional offer that sparked the more creative side of the audience.

Question 6:

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Whilst designing my magazine cover, I used both photoshop and inDesign, photoshop made it easier for me to come up with a colour palette as it let me put a whole load of colours together to see what the outcome looked like, so I could tweak with the colours easily to get the right look for the cover. InDesign, allowed me to put it all together and was better for the job as opposed to using microsoft word. The benefit of using inDesign over word was that if I needed to, I could put things onto different layers making it easier to organise the text and seperate the images making it easier to move things around.

Finished product

Mock up pages.

questionnaire for initial ideas

Audience research.

Question 1:

Which magazine name do you prefer?

- Student Oddities. (2)

-Studentlife. (1)

-Student Buzz. (0)

-Student momentum. (0)

Question 2:

How much would you be willing to pay for the magazine?

-Free

-50p (3)

-£1.

Question 3:

Where would you prefer the photo to be taken?

-Inside a classroom

-Outside the college (3)

-By the castle

-In the college canteen.

Question 4:

what would you want to see in the magazine?

-music.
-current affairs.
-films.
-art.
-fashion.
-sports.
-gaming.
-finance.

All the above (2)

All of the above excluding fashion (1)

What colour scheme do you prefer?

-1 (0)

-2 (2)

-3 (1)

Initial ideas.

Another thing we have to do for our student magazine is create the actual brand name and the initial ideas for the magazine cover.

We are also required to come up with other things we need to be on the cover, for example the content of our magazine the house style what images we will use and what the price will be.

Possible brand name ideas;

-Student Oddities.
-Studentlife
-Student Buzz
-Student momentum

House style and colour scheme.;

A separate post has been made for my house style ideas.
http://stephaniekrafczyksmediablog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/colour-scheme-ideas.html

Price;

For the price I have decided to choose something affordable for the students so something between completely free upto £1.

Images;

I am hoping to have a selection of photos to choose from for the front cover, they will probably be of Students doing work or a student pointing out an issue that would end up being in the magazine.


Content;

My beginning ideas for the actual content of the front cover- article wise, is to present items that students are usually interested in. For example; students tend to look in magazines for information on upcoming/existing bands or what's going on in the world of celebs.

So articles on things such as;

-music.
-current affairs.
-films.
-art.
-fashion.
-sports.
-gaming.
-finance.

Colour scheme ideas

For the colour scheme of my magazine cover and contents page, I decided to look at colour palettes that had contrasting colours as well as colours that complimented one another aswell.

During my search I came across these palettes that were colours on a pre-existing image- so I thought I may be able to create an entire colour scheme through things that students typically use on a day-to-day basis so that the audience would be able to instantly recognise the colours and can instantly connote the magazine to the chosen items.

Colour palette ideas.

Another idea I had in regard for text/backgrounds/logos were using textures and other things for example using things like this;

 

or even using fabric textures such as denim

I think using textures that look modern will make cover/contents page look more professional.

analysis of front cover

Analysis 1

Colour scheme;

Red + white- Contrasting colours makes the text easier to see and appeal more to a youthful audience as the colours are give a more modern and fresh look to the cover.

The central image is a photo of a painting on a wall, again seems modern and again appeals to a more younger audience, it also relates to one of the sections on the bottom of the page that is entitled “street art”

The puff advertises the opportunity to win “weekend offender goodies” this is interesting because we usually connote the word “offender” as being a criminal. So the fact that you can win “criminal” goodies is intriguing.

The banner at the bottom advertises what is going to be in the magazine.

This feature is usually used on websites as a way of navigation.

The layout of the magazine cover seems clear and quiet, the simplicity of the cover, could possibly be showing the attempt of being more sophisticated and to the point. 

The colour scheme chosen is almsot identical to the front cover- except this has alot more blue mixed in with the red and white, however the white is used for the background, making the double spread look much cleaner and modern than most content pages.

The layout of the page is clear to read and easily laid out, and looks like its divided into sections, with regulars and listings put into the bottom right hand corner, which could suggest that this is where they are placed regularly in the issue, this further connotes the success and that these must be the sort of things that the readers prefer to look at.

After looking into a bit more detail, I was able to eventually see the blue highlights amongst the text (I have pretty bad eyesight and the best quality image I could get is pretty blurry) The blue stands out from the white background and also contrasts with thew orange, allowing it to be more visible- on better quality images!

Analysis 2:

The layout of the page is extremely blank, not even containing many of the generic conventions- the only ones really features are the central image, brand names, and a small puff.

As a result of the plain cover- the colour scheme/ house style is also pretty bland, the only colours are black, red, white and orange,however they do contrast from the brightness from the photo, allowing the viewer to see them much clearer.

The only way visible that the photo relates to anything on the cover is the fact that in that small puff it says "New term.." this shows us that this is a new year issue since the model has snow on her hair, and the snow-blue filter that photos get when it has been snowing.

Work Flow.

During the first week of working on this project I'm hoping to trudge my way through:

• Identifying the generic conventions of student/college magazines.
• Analyse TWO front covers of existing student magazines.
• And Finally conduct a focus group to establish what the student audience wants to gain (ect) from this new magazine.

The second weeks expectation to have hopefully have done;

• Produce drafts and mock up versions of the front cover and the contents page.
• Begin the final designs of the for the front cover.

Produced photos for the front cover.

On the final week of the project/task I will be just finishing up the the cover and contents pages ready for the project deadline (17th October).

Introduction to Preliminary task.

Using a publishing and an image manipulation program, we were instructed to produce the front cover of  new college/student magazine that must feature;

-A medium close-up photo of a student.

-Appropriate laid out text.

-A masthead.

We also have to create a mock of the contents page for the magazine aswell.