For the preliminary task, we were asked to produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid out text and a masthead. Additionally, we were to create a mock-up of the layout of a contents page. The construction of this magazine and all the research can be found on my production blog: dannibrooks.wordpress.com.
Firstly we had to make a decision whether we would create a magazine cover or produce a film. I was highly interested in producing a magazine cover and contents page as in the future I would like the work for a magazine company, so I thought this would be good practice for me to do this part of the task instead of the film. I had to think of the type of magazine I wanted to create because I couldn’t decide on a certain theme. I had a few initial creative ideas to start with, one of which is posted up on my blog. I thought about creating a magazine based around my favourite television programme which is based on a high school in America. However whilst researching further into this I realised I could not copyright anything from the programme, so I would have to change everything anyway. This led me to change my idea and in the end I decided that a fashion magazine would best fit me because I enjoy reading them types of magazines so it wouldn’t be hard to think of what to put in my own for fashion students.
I began this task by researching into various magazine covers and contents pages in order to look at the different layouts involved with magazines. I looked at three different fashion magazines; one in particular was ‘Elle’ magazine as it attracts the same target audience that I was hoping to appeal to, teenagers who are interested in fashion. Whilst looking at the magazines I looked at what I loved about each of them and how I could represent them in my own magazine, I was also thinking of what my audience would like a the same time. All this research was completed over the internet, using search engines such as ‘Google’ where I found examples of the magazines. The research help me greatly in constructing my own cover as I had a basic understanding into what a magazine cover looks like and provided me with ideas on the conventions of magazine covers. From researching into existing fashion magazines I was influenced to create my magazine as realistic as possible by using certain fonts and colours which represented my chosen target audience.
I started off with thinking of a colour scheme for my front cover. I settled for shades of purple and black as I thought they combined well together. I decided to keep the background colour as white because I thought any other colour would take too much away from my magazine and the dark colours stood out better on the lighter background. After I had decided what my magazine would be called, which took me some time, I created my masthead and put it in place. After this I got straight onto putting my main picture of my model, with a medium close up, in place too. I had to take all my pictures myself which took me some time as not many people wanted to be a model, as a result this gave me time management issues. I decided that the masthead looked best behind the image because I thought it looked good however considering comments from my peers I changed it to the front of the image where in the end it seemed to work best. On the front cover I also had to include a barcode and price tag to indicate that my magazine was not free and had to be purchased following the conventions. I also included a small box-out where the price was placed inside. The name of the magazine was ‘Dynamic’ which took me some time to think of however after researching into fashion terms I liked this one the best so decided to use it because of its fashion connatation, and it also represents my audience. I think when people look at the word ‘Dynamic’ on a fashion magazine it wouldn’t be hard to realize what it represents.
As i did not have my images when I completed my text and masthead, I had to insert pictures from ‘Google’ that were appropriate to my cover for the time being until I had take my original ones. I also played around with the effects I could use for the texts I had inserted to see if using an effect on them would make them stand out more, however i decided that it was best to leave them because the font i used, and colours, worked really well when attracting my audiences eye. I finally inserted my pictures in the appropriate places and added effects using photoshop to make my magazine look better, however later changed them as without the effects the magazine looked more realistic. Taking the pictures for my magazine was the hardest part however in the end a few friends agreed to let me take their photo, and for the rest I used some images I took during a photography lesson in the studio. For my main picture,which is the photo of a student in a medium close up,I edited the picture a lot, I made her face less blotchy and smoothened out her skin, I changed the colour of her lips a bit so seemed as to wearing lip-stick and I also changed the colour of her eyes because I thought the blue worked well with the colour of my text I used. To make sure the consumer would know it was a fashion magazine I included text that implied it was a fashion magazine and also included an interview with a student talking about a fashion show within the college which had recently been launched. I also inserted black borders around things because it gave the impression that the writing inside of it were of more importance than other things. It gave a brief description of what was going to be included in the magazine.
Moving onto my contents page I knew I had to keep the colour theme consistent so I kept with the white background with dark purples and black colours for the text, and any existing effects I created on my front cover. Fom my research, I realised that they contents page should include further detail in what can be found in the magazine and on what page. I had to include everything that would be shown in the magazine. Firstly I created a masthead for the contents page and made it the same coour as the mastead on my front page, which is purple. I then created text that implied it was the contents page, saying ‘table of contents’. In the contents page I inserted my other three images which were compulsory to the task, and used a black border around one of them which I thought worked really well. I was aware that i had to include a date on my contents page so i used a date leading up to the summer, so I knew I had to base it around the same time. The text was mainly in black on the contents page because it was more informative than the text on the front cover. I decided to add a light purple crosshead above each section of writing I included, in a different font which my magazine was still based on fashion. This worked really well on my magazine and gave it a more elegant look about it. I did decide to change a lot of things about my front cover and contents page because my initial ideas were not always the best. I have posted the changes i made and why on my production blog however, so people can see my first ideas and my final ones.
My target audience for this magazine are college students so I had to make the magazine attractive and eye-catching in order for the students to pick up the magazine. I did this by all the effects i Have used on the images and the text to make them magazine stand out more. The majority of students who would be interested in this magazine would be fashion students or students at least interested in this topic. Because a lot of people like to read these types of magazine I had to make sure my magazine appealled to all of them, not just one certain group of teenage college students. I kept the vocabulary simple and short in order for the students to understand easier and for them not to get bored. This main image of a medium close up was the most important thing that attracted the audience so I had to make it stand out. I think by making her eyes the same colour of some of my text it made it more interesting. I made the text and image fairy big on the front cover so the audience could know exactly what type of magazine it was when they picked it up. The purpose of my magazine was to interested studens in fashion and help to get them involved in joining a fashion course within the college, and make them knowledgeable about the events going on and hopefully help them to join in with some of them.
To gather feedback i created a questionnaire to give out to my peers. Most of the feedback was positive, with many impressed with my masthead and the general layout of the cover and contents page. My peers commented upon the choice of colours used, suit the type of magazine i was trying to create. The one negative feedback that i took into account was that they pictures i had in my contents page weren’t cut out as well as they could have been. I agreed with this but couln’t help it or imporve on it. A few students said that the masthead could be more outstanding, so to add an effect would have been better, which was my initial idea but I thought it looked better without one. Many students also mentioned that the magazine could be seen in college and also in other shops that sell fashion magazines. This was positive feedback. I could see my magazine being published alongside others in college and maybe in a newsagents. The price of my magazine was commented upson and adived to be cheaper, around about £1 instead of £1.99. From the feedback I gained, I seemed to have achiebed my target audience very well with most students saying the age range of my magazine was about 15 – 20. Males obviously didn’t enjoy my magazine as much as females which i expected to begin with as it was aimed at women.
My audience for this task were teenage students who were interested in fashion. I focused more on attracting the female eye instead of the male, because its harder to created a a fashion magazine based on men than women. To engage the reader in my product I used a semantic field of fashion which was attracted the reader because they knew that my magazine was for them and obviously about fashion and nothing else. The images I used for my cover and contents page were also highly obvious in showing the theme of my magazine was fashion because they were all modelling photos which I personally edited and transformed to look like fashion images. The fonts i used also go well with my magazine and I think they emphasize my target audience were fashion students, and just by looking at the cover you can automatically tell what type of magazine it is.
I think my magazine has developed from an idea to a potentially good magazine, really well. The colours used are all different shades of purples. I think this helps to achieve my target audience because girls are usually more associated with pinks and purples, sebsequently the subjects chosen by boys and girls at school/college are very different, with boys doing more physical subjects. Fashionis largely assosicated with women because of the clothes and hair products etc. involved in it. Therefore the social group which would be more represented here would be teenage females. I think the text and fonts I have used represent this social group well and the images used show fashion really well. From completing this preliminary task I have been taught many things about the production of magazines. Nearer the beginning things seemed easier than they actuallyy were because I didn’t have a good understand of the work involved, however throughout the production of my magazine I have had numerous lessons on how to use photoshop to edit my picturs and how to create my front cover and contents page and layout. By researching covers that relate to mine I have learnt about the layout of most fashion magazines and how they should look like. I had never used a mac before we started this task and now I feel i have a good understanding on how the system works, which i think is a good achievement. The pictures however were not hard to create because I am also a photography student so i already knew how to use a camera to take my photos. I know feel comfortable creating magazine front covers and contents pages.
I looked at XXL magazine because it portrays the same genre of music i like listening to however there are hardly any covers for this magazine with girls on them which shows the magazines target audience is men not women. The style and layout of this layout is really good in achieving its audience. The text is also a good font which i need to consider when producing my own magazine too. I like this magazine as it is not overflowed with information on the front cover and shows a generally nice look to it which attracts the reader to it. I need to consider all these aspects when doing my own magazine so looking at more magazine covers for this certain magazine may help me.
