Evaluation

For our media studies coursework, our main task was to produce a front cover text and contents page using various technological programs.

First of all we, as groups did research and viewed previous models and layouts of magazines, which were designed and created for many different audiences. We found out that in the majority of the front covers of the magazines, many had an image of a person who was dressed accordingly to genre of the media type. Therefore as our magazine was sport based I feel our decision to involve our female model dressed in a white England National Football shirt was a good idea. This image connotes passion to the nation and aspiration to do well in sports as well as the will to succeed in academic studies. Furthermore we found out that all magazine front covers have large masthead at the top of the text. We decided to also copy this and have our masthead in larger font size with a serif style text type. In addition to this we found that the splash story was commonly found to the left or right of the head of the centre of visual interest image. We found out that these features worked well to appeal to its target audience so therefore closely followed these techniques to improve our own text.

Our product was pitched at a specific audience while we were planning our product. Our magazine was a college student magazine that is to be sold to students who attend higher sixth form college education. This means that it will have to be both interesting and informing to the audience. Our main target audiences both male and female, ages between 16-19. They are most likely to be of a family with either intermediate managerial, administrative and professional roles, or of supervisory, clerical administrative roles. Both of which are Achiever’s as they are in education to do well. To also keep up with interests within our magazine it is aimed at people who had post-modernists social values, these people with to have what’s in the present and to ‘play’ now.

In order to attract this specific audience we had to use a range of techniques. Firstly we picked a white colour for our masthead text as it is part of the college colours and also stands out to the audience when viewing for the first time. The colour white connotes strength and the ability to be clear; these are qualities the students need to take into their education to achieve.

Secondly we used a splash story that personally directed the reader. Using this technique involves the audience when viewing and address them to be consequently interested in the stories within the magazine. I couldn’t go to over the top with the fonts as my targeted gender was multi-sexual and couldn’t be pinpointed. Bold colours and fonts attract the masculinity of the male readers however could be impeding to the female genders interest. Therefore I feel we have picked the correct colours and font to attract to our audience.

During this Project we have used many types of programs and technology for our production most of which are new to myself. First of all we used the Internet to research our magazine cover and how we could make it appropriate for our targeted audience. We then used a Digital SLR camera that had features that we’re suited to the type of photo we wanted such as auto focus and zooming. This is the technology we used to take the picture that was used for our image. Next we used a production tool called Photoshop to make amendments to the image and add in text to create our front cover. This was extremely simple to use and made the production a lot easier.

The best tool on photoshop was the magnetic lasso tool as it gave us the option to cut around the body and head of the image and paste it apon any background we chose.
We then designed the layout for the contents page on a program called indesign. This program was also relatively easy to use and I found very little problems when using it. New modern Technology shows how easy it is to product magazine front covers and contents pages in comparasment to the times before the computer. Finally we used an online blogging website called Blogger to keep up to date with the stages we had already passed and learnt. This was a good way of remembering and showing off what we had already learnt. I feel that all of this new technology can only be a benefit to the magazine producing industry as it is quick, easy and an up-to-date way of producing top quality pieces of text.