Final Peice Evaluation

I have found that throughout the Foundation Portfolio task i have learnt a lot of key skills in being able to recognise conventions of different magazines. I have found it very useful in the sense that this task has given me good practice in being able to analyse thoroughly both text and the language of an image. These skills enabled me to successfully create my final piece of designing the front cover of my own college magazine along with a mock up of a contents page.

My end product is a college magazine, it includes all the traditional conventions and features you would expect to see in any magazine. I have made sure to include such things as; issue number, date, price and bar code, a masthead (sub also), main headline, sub headline main image additional image and a plug which appears bright and bold offering students discounts which relates directly to the target audience. I also included an unusual feature i spotted in 'School Sport' magazine which is a strip along the bottom which indicates briefly the content of the issue.

My college magazine is aimed at students and the target audience would range from around 15-19 years old, this gives potential students the chance to read the magazine also. I designed my front cover using very bright and bold text fonts to ensure the magazine stands out to catch the readers attention. It is unlikely a target audience of a younger generation are going to pick out or want to read a magazine which appears dull and boring. The mast head is the biggest text featured on the cover so that it can be easily recognised and features a sub-masthead above to enhance the title and college it's self.

Throughout the design process of my final piece I was able to look back to other magazines which I had analysed in a previous post to make sure I included the conventions which are seen in real media products. I noticed that in each magazine there was a set colour scheme used in fonts and backgrounds usually consisting of three colours, for example in 'School Sport' and 'Blunder' a colour scheme of black white and yellow is shown. I made use of this particular convention by using a colour scheme of red, white and purple. Although I wrote the word 'striking' in yellow text which steers away form my colour scheme.

I wanted to make a link with the yellow background of the image in the top right hand corner as i realised no other yellow appeared anywhere else. As the image is advertising a sport jumper and the particular headline that I have included the yellow in is advertising a sports win i decided this was a good opportunity to make a related link between the two. I also used a different colour text for my main headline, firstly to make it stand out more and secondly science exercise books always used to be orange and as my headline focuses on this idea it relates well. Also if you notice on the left hand side of my cover is the layout of a more conventional way of a gossip or fashion magazine and the right hand side focuses in on the academic representations of the magazine.

The image of the science student is the main focus of the cover as all the other features are placed around her so that she is dominant over the rest going on in the cover. I edited my photo using photo shop elements to blur out the background of my photo. I did this so that the student would become the main focus and stands out more from the rest of the photo. The student is looking up towards the test tube portraying a positive and optimistic outlook and this is the message i am trying to get across about Wyke college in my magazine.

I put a lot of thought into my main image focus, to ensure that it entirely reflects the main headline. Similarly to the 'Look' magazine and 'School Sport' she is not looking directly at the audience but rather at the test tube in her hand, she is dressed in a science lab coat and safety goggles creating the impression she is taking part in an experiment. In addition to this another reason i chose to include the test tube containing solution is to emphasise the pun displayed in the headline 'Science: A Solution to Succeed', this is written written bigger and bolder in comparison to the other text around and is written across the students arm to emphasise the link between the two. The costume also strongly represents the social stereotype of what a scientist dresses like. My image suggests the student is unaware their photo is being taken implying it has been captured during a lesson creating a sense of realism and verisimilitude.

If I had the chance to make improvements to my final magazine cover i would make changes to the colour scheme and limit them to three colours and only three as seen in the other magazines I have analysed previously. I would change the yellow background colour which I took my photo against in the image of the sports jumper, so that it links in with my chosen colour scheme and is not entirely unrelated. I have boxed some text as part of a headline, however no other boxing appears anywhere else on the cover so i would either not include this or box a whole headline instead of just part of one.

Overall i believe i made good use of the conventions of magazines and I am very pleased with my end product for the foundation portfolio task of creating a front cover for a college magazine.