Planning my college magazine

I designed a questionnaire and thought out questions in order to help me understand the features my audience desire to see in a magazine. I handed it out to students and when I collected them back in I studied the results.
Over 50% of the students answered that they would not read the college magazine and in asking why the majority claimed that it was because it would be 'boring'. I wanted to know what would interest the students in reading the magazine, the main four answers I received were:

• Sports
  
• Music


• College Events


• Jobs

So I will be sure to include these in my magazine as it seems the majority wish to have them in the magazine. I wished to find out how much students would be willing to pay for a college magazine, over 50% said they would only pay 50p, I plan to make the first issue of my magazine 50p and then the rest of the issues will be higher in price, depending on how many buyers there are is how high the price will rise. I also plan to have adverts in my magazine which will help bring in more money and this will help to create a better quality magazine.
I also wanted to find out how often students would want each issue to be released, it was a tie between every fortnight and every month, I will be releasing mine every month in order to preserve money. I asked if they would be interested in an online version and most answered that no they would not be interested in one, so I will not be making one. 70% of students said that they would not subscribe to the magazine so I plan to make an offer to persuade them to subscribe.
One of my questions was whether the students would prefer the magazine to be formal or informal, 100% answered that they wished for the magazine to be informal.
By asking all of these questions I am now able to create a magazine which I know that my audience will enjoy and hopefully buy on a regular basis.

I researched existing college magazines to help further my knowledge while doing so I was able to analyse the features of the magazine such as; font; colour; picture placements and other various things. I then choose the cover I found the most interesting and uploaded it to flickr so I was able to annotate it, also I was able to add tags to the cover which helped me to see the smaller details so I would be able to use this in my own work.

When I planned my magazine cover I first decided on the two colours I would use, I decided I would keep it fairly neutral by using black and red which would appeal to both male and female audiences. My title, I decided should be simple nothing too 'out there' or I would put off certain audiences, so I settled for 'College Crush' but the font I used was fairly stylish as I'd kept everything else simple. I made the placement of my pictures as evenly spaced as possible so I could fit in at least three sell lines, four if needed. For my cover background image I looked at 'Campus Life' and decided my model needed to have at least one of the colours on that I had used for my fonts.

I kept my contents page simple, using the sell lines that had been selected in my questionnaire and using three picture that I had taken and found on the internet which fitted in with my sell lines.

My Finished College Magazine Contents Page

I picked red and black as the two colours for my contents page as I thought that they we're fairly neutral and suitable. I kept the layout simple using only 3 pictures instead of writing what was on each and every page in the magazine, and also the pictures help to illustrate what will be shown of the pages. Of course, if this were a real magazine the contents page would be completely filled. The largest writing on the page is obviously the title so the buyer is aware what the page is about. I decided to use black writing for the title because it made it seem as though the word has seeped through the block of red.

Music Journalism Practice Piece

Paranormal Activity 2 Review

We think that Paranormal Activity 2 was the scariest film to have ever of been made! The way they filmed it, as if it were a real person's life added to the creepy factor by like a zillion! We think the actors did a brilliant job of convincing us that this was a real documentary, and also using the dog and the baby in the film made us that much tenser throughout! While we were watching it we were practically peeing in our pants afraid of what might happen next, there were babies moving in midair and cupboards flying open all at the same time, it really got to us! So, if you don't like films where things go bump in the night then this is definately not the film for you! Not our most favourite film, but out of all the thrillers? This is by far the best....or worst?

Star Rating: 4/5

Looking back at your preliminary task (the college magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

I feel that since the preliminary task I have developed with my skills in photoshop quite well, using layers has helped me a lot as I was able to move around the images so that even if I'd

created a layer after another I could then move it so that it was under the layer before it. Also the different modes of the layers were helpful in editing my pictures. I discovered how to edit my pictures without changing anything too drastic but just enough to see a slight difference, I used colour picker to get a close idea of what the actual colour of the people in my pictures hair was and I'd then adjust the RGB numbers slightly so that the colour was enhanced instead of completely changed.

Unlike in my college magazine, on my front cover I used pull quotes from my main article to give my readers a little sample of what's to come inside the magazine.

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

I have learnt how to use a blog to help organize my work using blogger, also it gives my teacher easy access to see how my work is progressing. The tags which I used helped me to categorize my work which also made it easier to find each piece of work I had done.

The website; flickr was also very useful as I was able to link it up with my blog and instead of all my annotations for my images being all over this blog, you could click the picture I had posted on my blog and it would take you to flickr and the annotations were in tags over the part of the picture I was talking about which was very useful.

Photoshop was very useful for creating my media product, because of the layers and the different editing tools that are available to use helped to make an appropraite product, I was able to improve my pictures and add or erase things that I didn't want in there.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The masthead is in a similar place to most magazines, but the font I've used bold capital lettering so it makes it seem as though the title is being shouted, which emphasises the title name.

The photograph I have used as the main image reflects off my audience as you can see by the brightly coloured hair and the clothing which be considered un-feminine. The name of the band hints the area of music that is featured in the magazine.

I have used a pull quote on the cover because I think that giving the audience a taster of what's inside the magazine influences their choice to buy the magazine.

The other two photographs give the audience a better idea of the other artists which are featured in the magazine, showing that there is a variety of punk/rock artists instead of just bands or just male artists.

The other main selling point of the cover is the sell line found at the bottom of the page, my audience are very influential and musically talented, most of them will probably be in their own band so this particular sell line capture quite a bit of interest. The language used is friendly and encouraging, and I have used and exclamation mark to add excitement.

Like most other magazines I have included an editors note as a kind of brief about what's new in this issue and who's being shown the the main article.

The main image links back to the front cover, their 'look' provides some insight of what kind of genre music they play. The smaller image which is in the top right hand corner continues the genre of the magazine, the black paint dripping gives it a sloppy, grungy feel.

I have made sure to include lots of different band names to keep my audience's interest, I used various subheadings such as feedback because then the audience will feel appriciated if something they have written or drawn is shown in the magazine.

I continued the same font from the front cover because I helps the magazine to keep some kind of identity. The pull quote shows that the band is 'real' and care about their fans and want to perform.

The photographs feature the band members and then there is a personal touch as they have given the magazine two of their own personal pictures of the social life to be shared, which insinuates that there is some form of trust and that the band want to be seen as real people.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product would be aged 16-21 due to the language used and the topics which are featured. Mostly male as the music genres which are included (screamo, punk/rock) appeal more to males. British, because it's made and sold in Britain. Single because of the age range and probably class C1 individuals as they are so young which means they aren't easy to class whereas older people are.



They watch various movies from things such as Saw, Sanctum, Batman etc. Big or colourful hair, have strange piercings such as neck or they may wear ear streatchers, have tattoos which consist of lyrics or an imagge that represents something meaningful to them.

These types of people would buy my magazine because they will enjoy the featured articles as the musicians fall under the genres that they would typically listen to. Also the album and film reviews are the kind that they would watch or listen to.

They might listen to artists such as Avril Lavigne, Ozzy Osbourne, Paramore, AC DC etc. which are included in my media product.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The picture on the right is of the band called 'The Nonsense Kids' which I created for my magazine. The picture on the left is of a band called 'Paramore'. The locations of both the pictures are on beaches, though the the picture of Paramore shows sand, and a pier, the picture of The Nonsense Kids shows only the sea and the horizon. The camera angles which are used for both pictures are similar but mirrored, so they are facing different directions. The lighting in both of the pictures is also fairly similar, the sun is shining but not to apparantly, just enough to create a kind of glow in the pictures.

The colours in the picture of Paramore are quite bright and even in the background the fairground rides are boldly coloured, whereas in the picture of The Nonsense Kids the background is a dull bland colour to keep the attention drawn to the people.

The expressions in both the pictures are fairly similar, some of their faces are neutral not giving anything away whereas the other band members look inquisitive. I feel that these expressions attract an audience because they are echoing their inquisitivity to the magazine so they feel like they have a connection.

I think that these pictures challenge the publics idea of what women are like, the picture of Paramore is of one female with four males and women are typically found in the company of other women in society. In the picture of The Nonsense Kids the three girls have got boldly coloured hair (particularly the middle girl as hers is blue) and the clothes that the girl who is closest to the sea is wearing would be considered unfeminine because of the leather and the studs round the collar of the jacket. I think this represents my magazine well because it's not a typical, regular found photograph which reflects the fact that the things featured in my magazine are not familiar which adds an element of excitement.

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

I chose to put my masthead in a generic position because I believe that my audience want something with familiarity, I made it big and bold by using a font that used only capital letters so that when you read it, it appears to be shouting at you. I put the publishing date down near the bar code like many other magazines do so I do not distract the audiences attention away from the main focus. The main image has three band members looking away from where the camera is to make it seem mysterious, make the audience wonder what they might have seen. The main sell line is focusing back to the main image, it gives the audience a teaser of sorts. My other sell lines are placed to the left and at the bottom of the cover so none of the main image has been covered. The barcode is placed in the bottom right hand corner so not to distract any attention.

The font from my front cover is translated over to the contents page, I have added in the issue number and publishing date as other magazines would do on their contents. I have added in photographer credit which can be found in a small font along the left hand side of the page. I have used various font sizes because I wanted to subcategorize the articles, so I made the titles stand out by making the font white and placing them over a black background. I have included the "features" as most magazine do but I avoided putting in "regulars" because my audience would probably be put off by the word as this magazine focuses on the stranger side of music.

I have continued with the font from my masthead as it is also the font I used for the sell line for the main article. I used a pull quote from the article at the top of the page, but instead of using a different, bigger font I made it stand out by echoing the way I made the subcategories on my contents page stand out. I decided to use more than one picture on the main article instead of one large image because I think it gives it a rougher look which is what I want for my audience. At the bottom I have included information about the bands upcoming events to show that we do know our stuff about the people who we are interviewing.

Hearing Damage Double Page Spread Evaluation

For my double page spread I have used four colours three of them are the same as I had origionally used and I decided that the background, if made black would be too harsh against the white text I used to write my article interview. I kept the caution tape as a theme for this double page spread, and I continued with the colours from it, using black and yellow outlines for the three main pictures. I took all the pictures which have been used myself. I added in some black and yellow stars because I needed something to sill in the spaces around the text, and I didn't want to use more pictures as I think that would've been too many.