Front Cover

Contents Page

Evaluation: How did you attract/address your audience?

You can tell that this is a magazine front cover because it uses the conventions of media magazines. For example, we have used screamers throughout the cover to give emphasis on various articles that are to be featured within. This is common within magazines and used in the industry a large amount. We have also used a masthead to display our title of the magazine. This makes the front cover easily definable as an industry cover because the audience is targetted through the name and style. We have also used a puff to big up our magazine which would definitely taregt our audience through the use of promotion and a bold colour. The colours we have used on the cover are eyecatching to the target audience, which is mainly girls. I feel that the use of pinks and blues contrasting would help the audience show initial interest. The bar-code, date, title and issue number are all typical of a magazine front cover but are a neccessity, as opposed to trying to grab the attention of the audience. We have used a column at the side of our magazine because when we researched previous magazines that were already on the market and similar to what we wanted, this was a feature most of them used. We put fashion advice in the column to keep the audience interested and make them want to read inside.

Evaluation: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When looking at our magazine, you can see that it is a magzine by some media conventions that are used throughout the industry. Firstly, it has a clear masthead 'Breeez' which clearly states the name of the magazine and is in the traditional place of in the top right corner. The puff 'number one for student fashion' is underneath the masthead, which is common for media magazines. This is because the puff is bigging up the magazine and therefore should be close to the main title. The mainsell is also a feature of a real media product, and our magazine has one in the centre of the page. This shows the main story in the magazine and draws the attention of the teenage target audience. There are also many screamers such as 'SHOCK!' and 'WOW!'. The date, issue number, price and barcode are also typical of a current magazine, such as Look.

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your product?

The audience for our college magazine are 16-19 year old college students, mainly female. I think that on the psychographic profile they would be Aspirers and Radicals. They would be Materialists on their social values and C1/C2 on the jicnar scale.

Evaluation: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

We have learnt 3 main new technologies while creating our magazine cover. Firstly, Adobe Photoshop was the programme we used to make the actual front cover. We learnt how to layer the different parts of the front cover so that everything was in the correct order and made sense. We also learnt how to crop photos and edit various parts to the cover. We then used QuarkXpress to create our contents page, which was more complicated than Photoshop. The importing of photos was more complicated on this programme due to the more text and having to make them smaller. We were able to overcome this by placing the pictures in appropriate places that does not obstruct the text from the contents page. We also used a Digital Camera to take the photos, of which we had to edit and crop ourselves. We did this in Photoshop which made it able to be completed with ease. The use of the scanner was helpful because we had to get the front cover and contents pages of other various magazines that were already on the market. The blog itself was extremely useful because we were able to arrange all our work into a simple system that was easily recognisable.

contents page

We chose contents pages from 'Look' and 'Closer' because they share similarities to the magazine we're creating. The features that they share are pictures of celebrities, inserts about fashion, a letter from the editor and the articles are separated into different categories. Both contents pages contain columns and a central picture. The letter from the editor is also a key component of the contents page. Both of the pages use an informal mode of address because this is most suitable for the target audience we have selected, an example of this is 'hubby' or 'celebs'. Other ways in which they appeal to the target audience, is through bright colours and bold lettering, this helps the main articles stand out. A house style is obvious between the covers and the contents pages of both magazines. They both use the same colour schemes and writing styles. Also there is a picture of the front cover featured in the contents page.