Research and Planning: Preliminary Task- College magazine.

I began working on my college magazine two weeks ago; I have now completed a front cover and a contents page. Firstly I used paint shop-pro to design my front cover using conventions of;

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  A masthead
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  A slug line
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  Two attention-grabbing stories
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  The price
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  A bar code
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  Website address
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  An issue number
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  The release date of the magazine
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  A medium shot photograph
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  Other information

I used a very simple and clear font for my masthead, the colours I chose were black with an outer glow of light blue as I knew these two colours would blend well together and become very noticeable. The size of the font of the masthead is extremely important as it's the first convention my target audience will come across and also it has to sell itself to the buyer,  therefore I decided to keep it large and bold with a darker drop shadow around the glow. Then decided to name my magazine 'Hyde Clarendon Stars' to show the readers it's a student magazine aged 16-19 years old.

My slug line associates to the masthead e.g. 'Hyde Clarendon Stars' meaning  Hyde College students, telling them that 'it’s your future' to become successful in the future and shine. I have used a slightly different font which is more italic and slanted, I did this to show that the statement being made was not too serious and may come across to seem laid back, and it’s also a smaller size and is black so it does not clash against the masthead.

The two stories’ I chose to use on my cover are interesting, I decided to use certain words to draw my target audience in, I chose a story talking about the new young talent on television and trips. I knew to do this because when I researched other college magazine’s I noticed the editor had used very clever use of language and sentence structure. For the font I used a dim burgundy colour to match the book that was took in the photograph, this was to even the colour around the cover. In the first story at the top of the page I used three different types of fonts, the reason being i named two films which i used the font from, helping it look professional. 


For my bar code I used the Internet to upload an image onto my cover, I decided to place it at the bottom of the page as most magazine use this layout. For my web address I placed it on the left hand side of the cover besides the photograph the font is small, black and not placed overlapping anything. My price and issue number is placed above the bar code this convention is usually shown on a magazine. I then added an extra piece of information stating '52 pages extra' this was done to grab the audience’s attention, the colour blue helps it to stand out on the white plain background too.

Lastly for my photograph, I used a digital camera and take a medium close up, using a green board as the background to helped me cut around the body shape easier on Photoshop, the colour of the students top helped me choose the colour scheme as i based it around the colour. By looking at the photo you can tell that the magazine is based for students as she is holding a text book, wearing a student id card. I used drop shadow and changed eye colour of the student whiles editing the photo.

By analysing my magazine cover I thought that I could have added more information on the stories as they seem unexciting and lacking in detail, Also if I was to have more time I would have thought more professional and added a lot more detail and effort into the text and photograph. However I like how I've used 3 colours throughout the cover and they seem to blend very well together giving the page a warm and happy feeling.

Next for my contents page;

This section I spent less time on so I didn’t produce it as well as I could have. At the end of finishing this page I decided to print a copy off, this is when I realised that the font was too large, this can be a positive thing as when it comes to plan and design my music magazine it will then make me realize to check font size when printing. On my contents page I have two main sections with headings; Features and Monthly basically explaining what you can find in the magazine, i have split them into two sections because the Monthly section means these topics include in the magazine every month whereas the features may not. On the right hand side of the page I added four photographs that I took around the college; library, student area, outside area, buttylicious area these photographs are part of the college and showing the reader what target audience the magazine is aimed at.

I liked how I carried the colour scheme across from the front cover onto the contents page, which most magazine's do so this helped it to look professional, I also like how the photo's link to the stories on the right hand side so the reader can have more of an idea what there about to read. Lastly how I’ve not overlapped any text and look’s neat. However I dislike how large I made the font on the headings and information and how on each photograph I didn’t place a number of a page on them. I also could have created the lay out more interesting rather than too simple.