Evaluation for College Magazine

Evaluation for College Magazine

During the process of making my college magazine, taking photographs was probably the easiest part as I am in an environment where there are many things to photograph these include; a range of students, enrichment facilities and learning support areas for students. I had access to everything I had spoken about in my magazine. I am part of the College football team so I was able to take photos in the sports department easily with a wide range of things to take photos of. Ive also used Photoshop from before so I didn’t have any trouble using Photoshop I knew all the basics. It was also the same with InDesign as I knew all the little things which I needed.

I need to improve on my layout and also my contents included. I should also familiarise myself with Photoshop even more as I need to know it in more depth in order to carry out more detailed techniques on my actual magazine.

My College Magazine

1. What are the strengths of my magazine?

2. What are the weaknesses of my magazine?

3. What do you think of my colour scheme?

4.How much would you pay?

Plan for College Magazine

Analysis of College Magazine

Analysis of Front Covers, Contents Pages and Double Pages

Codes and Conventions

Codes and Conventions

Drop cap – the first letter of the article is usually in bald and is a capital.

Demographic and socio-economic – audience profiling.

Audience – male.

Masthead – title; universally recognised. Person is in front of the masthead as she’s the main focus.

Semiotics – denotation and connotation.

Denotation – what you see; signifier.

Connotation – messages, symbols and the meaning that is given; signified.

Main Model Image – the image on the cover (type of shot).

Direct mode of address – psychologically makes it seem like the person is only looking at you (to highlight facial expression).

The largest font – masthead.

Second largest font – main cover-line.

Anchorage – message backs up the image.

Pull quote – to make the audience more interested.

Lower left third – showing when it’s on display and is viewed first.

Skyline – additional information that features on the magazine.

Teasers – teases the reader and makes you buy it.

Psychological pricing – makes the buyer think it’s cheaper.

3-4 colour scheme – make it look simplistic and not overdone.

Formal font – make it simplistic and suitable.

Also add:

Barcode

Date

Issue

Branding

Evaluation

Evaluation

The strengths of my research skills were that I gathered a lot of information in a short amount of time. I found out a wide of statistics which made my article interesting. Music Piracy is a big topic so there was a lot to find out about it. Everyone had different views so it made the research wider. The weaknesses of my researching skills were that I was more reliant on the internet which meant that some information could have been unreliable. I could have used books as well to make my research stronger. It’s important that the information given is reliable as it makes it more accurate and trustable for people to read.

My journalistic and writing skills are quite strong as I am   creative in the way I write and like to make things different for people. I like to include things such as statistics so that my article isn’t like a boring story.  My weaknesses are that again I can be reliant on the internet to get more information and make my writing even better.

Despite it being my first go in using InDesign I didn’t really struggle as it was similar to another programme I’ve used before. InDesign doesn’t really require a lot of knowledge. My weaknesses were that I didn’t really know how to do the more complicated stuff like inserting an image without getting it too pixelated. On InDesign I couldn’t make my article look how I actually wanted it to as I was limited in the range of colours which made my article fall a bit dull.

Nowadays everyone uses the internet to do most of their things so I put my blog online as it has become more popular. My blog is open for everyone to read to ensure that everyone gets a chance to read it. People prefer to read their favourite newspapers and even books online rather than getting the paper copy as it is accessible when you need/want it.

My audience feedback was mainly positive although I did get a few criticisms such as the choice of image I made and also the colours I used. I could have picked a better image which linked with my article such as an image of Lily Allen as she was mentioned in my article. All my audience loved the “Interesting Facts” I included in my article as they said it was the first and made the article different to the rest they read from before.

Overall although I did get good comments on my magazine to make it even better next time I could use other sources to research such a books, articles and even people. I can include more colour in my article to make it more attractive.