College Magazine Evaluation

I was given the task to create a Wyke College magazine front cover. I decided firstly I should take some photos for the main image on the cover, I took some images of different students around the college. Before choosing the photo for my final cover, I jotted some ideas of what I wanted it to look like, to have a rough idea of what I was going to be doing. After taking a variation of photos I decided that my best and most effective image was one of student sat in the college library at a desk with books in front of him. I had the student smiling in the photo, as this gives the audience a feel that the college is a happy and fun place to be. The front cover is very bright and vibrant; this also gives off a positive and happy vibe to represent the college and the students. My text is all black and quite bold, this is because I played around with other colours and no other colours really stood out against the background colours as well as black did. I also think black is the most effective because the background is quite bright and vibrant, so the text being black really stands out and gets to the point of what it’s trying to tell its audience.

The front cover is designed to appeal to young students that are at the stage of deciding what type of education to go into next. The cover is trying to give off the best impression it can of the college to the audience. It does this by a happy student presenting the college, showing that the students are enjoying being at the college. As well as having fun, the books that are in the photo show that students are getting good grades.

In my front cover I have included a mast head saying ‘Wyke College…6^th form’, I wanted the mast head to be simple, so the audience knew exactly what the magazine was about and so then the college name would become more well known. Rather than say ‘college life’ which was another masthead idea I was considering, as the audience wouldn’t know instantly what college the magazine was about and may not take the time to read and find out. Therefore I thought having the name of college in the masthead was a good idea for catching the audience’s attention. I included a sell line above the mast head, I decided that my sell line was going to be a promotion about NUS’s that students are able to get from college. I did this because it entices the audiences, its grabs their attention and makes them want one. I did the sell line in a different colour to all the other text because I wanted it to stand out and for the audience to read it more or less immediately, because promotions are good for giving the college a good reputation. I fitted all the text around my medium close up of a student because I didn’t want any of the text to cut it out, as it’s the main features and represents a lot of what the college is about and what life is like within the college. Down the right hand side of the front cover I have included some subtitles, articles that would be included within the magazine. I did this because it makes the audience excited about what goes on at Wyke College, and makes them want to read inside.

I attracted my audience by using a person with a friendly face and someone that I thought interacted with audience well. Someone that gave off a good vibe, because the audience are not going to want to read the magazine or be interested in the college at all if the student doesn’t look like he’s interested or enjoying his college experience. I put a date on the front cover so the audience knows that the information in the magazine is new and updated information, the audience will then know that Wyke College are frequently making new magazines with brand new exciting information. When editing the image that I had chosen I started with editing with the brightness and contrast, I did this because the picture was quite dull so brightening it up gave it a more exciting look and feel about the college. I also played around with the vibrance and levels to make the appearance of the bright colours like the red and yellow really stand out against all the other colours. All of these things gives off a exciting and interesting vibe of the college. The front cover is designed to make students want to go to Wyke College and find out more about what it’s like and what type of things go on there.