Monday 19 October 2009

"Campus Mango" Preliminary Student Magazine Evaluation

Our magazine is aimed at a student reader, which inspired the name "Campus Mango", which refers to college whilst being slightly comedic. The photograph of our model on the front is bright and friendly, making the magazine look approachable, encouraging the reader to pick up the magazine. We tried to include witty cover lines and strap lines to appeal to the demographic of our audience, whilst including articles which they may find interesting or useful. This is similar to other college magazines we've studied, which included each of these features.
However, we have created our magazine so it is slightly different to the typical college magazine; it is aimed at mainly a mature female audience, which is similar to a women’s magazine. Nevertheless, it is still slightly upbeat and includes humorous features which create a more college feel. We felt it quite simple to relate to the audience as it is aimed at people similar to us. To portray this, we used language and font which was easy to read, and included topics that we felt we could relate to as the ideal audience.

Through creating the college magazine, I have learnt how to use ‘Photoshop’ more effectively, thus I am now able to edit and improve a photograph. We also used a programme called ‘Quark Xpress’, which I found was a useful tool for creating a contents page. I hadn’t used the programme prior to this project, and I have now learnt how to successfully arrange text and pictures on a page in order to make it look professional.

Tuesday 13 October 2009

"Campus Mango" Contents Page



This is the contents page for our student magazine.

"Campus Mango" Magazine Cover


This is the cover of our student magazine.

Thursday 1 October 2009

Contents Page Research

Contents page links:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2048/2175964086_25f79a70ca.jpg
http://beauchampcollegemedia.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/contents-page-11.jpg
http://www.ephraimgregor.com/images/print/libertycont.jpg

Each of the contents pages i've viewed have featured a bold title to make it clear to the reader what's on the page. They all contain various lists, as the contents page is designed to tell the reader what's in the issue. I find that the most effective contents pages are the ones with a simple colour scheme, as it doesn't overwhelm the reader with a busy layout and discourage them from looking at the page.
The language used throughout is simple and straight to the point, in order to engage the readers interest without giving too much information away. On some contents pages however, there are eye catching subtitles followed by a small amount of explainitry text which i think is effective because it gives away a little more detail about what is to follow in the magazine.
On the contents pages i've viewed, they each contain simular fonts to those featured on the front cover. The information given on the contents page usually links to the front cover, and the colour scheme is often simular.