In the last 3 weeks I have been researching, planning and finally creating a college magazine front cover and a plan of a college contents page. I began researching by looking at any magazine front covers and contents pages and deconstructing them in to their key parts. A convention of a magazine front cover is something we expect to see on the magazine. I have specifically looked at the conventions of magazine front covers and contents pages and then looked at the genre of magazine, which was relative to my task, college magazines.
I believe my college magazine follows the conventions I identified and would make a successful college magazine as I think the simple front cover sells it to the target audience. My target audience in this case is college teachers; teachers are professional people who work hard to do the best for their students. My magazine would sell to this type of people as it looks pretty simple and formal and brings together news and stories from different colleges; this is shown in my front cover.
One of the main parts of a magazine is the masthead; this is no different for college magazines. Most magazines have a large simple masthead that is iconic to that magazine. College magazines have basic mastheads that are very clear. My magazine masthead follows this convention as it has a masthead in a simple readable font, in a stand out colour from the background. I have chosen red, as it is a basic colour and a convention for many magazines. I believe my masthead looks professional and therefore sells it to my target audience, as they are professional people. It spreads from left to right, like most college magazines and is a large size takes up over a fifth of the magazine height. It would establish the magazine if it were to be mass-produced.
The main image on a magazine is arguably the most important part of the magazine. It is what first catches the audiences eye and is how people decide if the magazine for them. The front cover is what sells the magazine and the power of image is much stronger than words. The image is of a student who is clearly learning from a textbook. This straight away says that the magazine is based on education and would catch the eye to a teacher. The image behind the image of the student is a picture of Wyke College itself, which relates to the main cover line story, which is also about Wyke. I believe that the layered image is a good idea as it is so strongly linked to the main cover line and would certainly catch the eye of a college teacher.
The main cover line is also a very important part of the front cover. It is usually layered up if the text is more than one line long and in different colours and size for each line. I included this in my magazine cover. I did this to make this cover line stand out. I think it adds a little more depth to the text on the page with the writing overlapped, different sized and coloured. I think it shows it is the main story. In the magazine. It is also linked to the main image, which is easily seen as it is located more central in the image than any other cover line.
Another convention is the date line and issue number. All magazines have a date or/and an issue number. I decided to include both on my magazine.
Overall I think my magazine cover was good as I think it would sell the magazine. I think it is what the target audience would want to see a simple, basic front cover that, anything overcomplicated would be too informal for the target audience. I think the cover lines show things that a college teacher would want to see. I believe the masthead is professional looking and would sell the magazine well. The only problem I had was manipulating the image, as on my front page the image does not look as smooth as I would like it to be. I believe as a whole that my magazine does look appealing, and would look also appealing to the target audience. If I did this again I would take better picture in a blank environment with nobody around to allow for better image manipulation and therefore a better overall magazine cover.
