Evaluation Questions

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
As the pages I have created are for a college magazine, they are not challenging real media products. I have used a similar layout to magazines I have bought from shops and looked. The brief was not actually to challenge anything, but to design a cover and contents page to meet what they asked for.

How does your media product represent paticular social groups?
My magazine represents college students, most of who are aged 16 - early 20s. I think the image used, the colour scheme and font all work well for this social group.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my magazine are students of the college.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I chose to use a female for the front cover, as I feel both genders would be more attracted to a female. Female students would look up to her, and want to be like her, and most male students would rather look at a photograph of a female rather than another male. I chose for her to wear earmuffs, as they are a fashionable piece of winter clothing, fashion being something most girls can relate to. She is smiling which helps to encourage people to buy it. The colour scheme is unisex, making it appealing to everybody. I also picked certain articles from the contents to put on the front page that were most likely to help the magazine sell.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
This project has given me a reason to use microsoft publisher for the first time. I think throughout the time I have spent making my two pages, I have gone from knowing nothing about this programme to knowing a fair amount. When I got stuck, I found tutorials on youtube to be very helpful. Google also came in handy. Although I used photoshop to edit my main photo, I am still unsure about how to use it to it's full potential.

Conclusion



Here are the front cover and contents page next to each other. Overall, I think the two images go well together, and are well suited to the December winter issue.

Front cover

Looking back at my front cover, I feel there are improvements that could have been made. I think the image is too light, and looks a little too washed out. I am also unsure about the text at the bottom 'Snowman competition photos and winner!'. The snowman clip-art looks a little un-professional, however it is a college magazine, not an expensive high street magazine. Other than these two problems, I think the cover is suitable and easy on the eye. The person on the front would appeal to both males and females, and she is smiling and friendly looking.

I chose to price the magazine at 70p, as there are 24 pages, two of which are adverts. The price would contribute to the price of the adverts, and I feel is a sensible amount for a 24 page magazine.

Contents

I feel the contents page looks as I intended, and continues the theme of the front cover well. If I could have made any changes, I would have taken more photos of the college, and been a little more creative. Although, I do not feel that is a major issue, and I am happy with the way the contents page turned out. Creating the contents plan on powerpoint was a big help in planning.

Although there are things I would change, I am pleased with what I have created, and will learn from my mistakes for future work, including our coursework creating a music magazine.

Completed contents page!

This is my completed contents page.

Creating the contents

As with the front cover, I used microsoft publisher to create the contents page. I decided to stick to the same colour scheme, and also use the snowflake feature that was used on the front cover. Here are five screen shots of the progress through to the finished page.

Step One

I started off the contents page with adding the text, getting it the right size and in the correct positioning.

Step Two

I used some photos I had taken last December of the two snowmen I'd built. I decided to use these photos as they obviously fit with my magazine, and there has been no snow during the time of making the magazine. I wrapped up some items in Christmas wrapping and made them pretty, and colour-themed. I thought this would go with the article 'Christmas craft class'. The photo of the Christmas dinner was actually a clip-art I used from the ones available on my computer. I used this as it was perfect for what I wanted, and it was not copyright. Using powerpoint, I gave each of the pictures a white border, as I felt this would look more professional and neat.

Step Three

I added the photos I chose to use, and rotated and overlapped them, to make them look more exciting. I also added the shoe box appeal symbol that appeared on the front cover.

Step Four

I added the same clip-art snowflakes that I used for the front cover. I think having the same theme running through looks good, and also professional.

Step Five

Lastly, I changed the colour of the text. Each sub-heading and it's contents has a different colour, I feel this looks effective and works well for the reader.

Contents Plan

After I had designed my contents page on paper, I looked back at it and realised I had made a mistake in putting 25 pages, which does not work for a magazine. I used powerpoint to create a little plan of the pages and what would go on each one to help me get it right.

I decided to get rid of the horoscopes page, and the 'win ...' page. Doing this allowed me to have a suitable amount of pages with the right amount of articles. I decided to lose these pages as I felt they were the least important pages of my magazine.

Completed front cover!

This is my completed front cover. I completed this before starting on the contents page, as I wanted to be able to put my full concentration into each one seperately.

Creating my front cover

Before I started putting together the front cover, I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 to edit my photo.

I made the image a lot lighter than it was originally, for two reasons. The first reason was because I wanted the background to be 100% white, and the only way I could find to do this was to lighten the image. The second reason was that I feel it makes the image 'frosty' and adds to the Christmas/wintery feel of the Christmas edition.

Here are four screen shots of the steps I took to create my front cover, using Microsoft Publisher.

Step One

I added the edited photograph and enlarged it to fit within the page. I then added the title 'College Monthly' in large blue letters at the top of the page.

Step Two

I then added some clipart snowflakes surrounding the masthead, and added the month and edition, and the price.

Step Three

  

I added the wording in the places I wanted them to go.

Step Four

The final steps I took to finishing my front cover were: adding an image to go with the shoe box appeal, adding the snowman competition feature at the bottom (on the folder), and adding colour to each feature.



Front cover photos

I used my sister Heidi for the front cover student. I took the photos in front of a white door, as I knew I wanted to use a white background. I went through a few photos before I got the one I wanted. There were more than I have posted on here, but I have used these four to demonstrate how they progressed.

I used a blue folder to fit with the colour scheme. I decided Heidi would wear a wooly jumper, as it is a winter edition of the magazine. However, the jumper alone did not stand out enough, so I added a scarf to the outfit. I changed my mind on how she should hold the folder, as I thought I could use that as a background for the 'snowman competition' article, so I moved the folder up. This hid the scarf, so I added earmuffs, which would easily allow the image to look wintery.  I also changed the photo to more of a close-up, as I felt this would look more suitable.

The last image of these four is the image I decided to use.

Drawings/ideas of front cover and contents

I drew some ideas of what I want my magazine to look like on paper, to use as a guide when I came to create it on the computer.

Front cover

Contents

I will aim to make my magazine very similar to my design, and will also take some suitable photos for the front cover and contents.

Magazine Ideas

Today we set up our blogs, and are able to start blogging! However, we recieved the preliminary task a couple of weeks ago, and I have actually done quite a lot of work already - so there may be quite a bit of work in these first few entries! ...

College magazine

Title of magazine: College Monthly

Month edition: December (Christmas)

Colour scheme: Blues and purples with a white background

Contents:

• Horoscopes
• Latest lunchtime activities
• Canteen Christmas special
• Christmas bargain buys
• January exam revision tips
• Snowman competition
• Christmas shoebox appeal
• Quiz
• Problems solved
• New year dates for the diary
• News
• New 'keep fit' club for 2012
• Christmas craft class
• Win 2 tickets to see 'Elf and Happiness'

Contents sections:

• On the cover
• In every issue
• Festive features

I have chosen to do a Christmas edition of the magazine, as it is coming up to Christmas and the magazine would be published at the end of November.

I chose to use blues, purple and whites for my colour scheme as they are frosty, wintery colours that people will associate with December and the cold, frosty weather. I did think about using a green and red colour scheme, but felt that although these colours are extremely 'Christmasy' and go well together in certain things such as wrapping paper, they could look a little stereotypical and mis-matched for the cover of a magazine.

I have decided to use my sister for the front cover photo as she is 18, which is around the typical age group of college students.

Start of blog!

This will be the first entry to what will become my AS Media blog!