Tyla-media: October 2012

My finished magazine is called WCM, which stands for Wyke College Magazine, and it uses several media conventions to make it obvious that it’s a magazine. For example, it has the main masthead at the top of the page and I have used a block font to make it stand out. I have also used black as the colour for the masthead as this colour made the masthead stand out against the natural background of the image beneath it. Colour scheme was another convention I used for my magazine, as most magazines only seem to have three colours at one time on the cover page, so I took this rule and also only used three colours, which were black, blue and white, as I felt that they stood out best against the background image when I placed all of the story lines around the background image.

I also used block fonts for the main headlines I featured on my front cover as I felt that these stood out best and they were also visible against the background which was a difficult task as I used a very light image that was taken outdoors so the colours can sometimes make small fonts harder to read, especially with the colour scheme I used.

In terms of the actual image I used, I also followed conventions then, and I also made the ideology clear with the image I used as I used a picture of someone smiling outdoors holding their file, which shows the ideology of someone getting an education at college and enjoying it, and it also follows the conventions as I used a medium shot which is the most common type of shot that is used on a magazine cover. The reason that I chose to use the image that I did was because after looking at several examples of college magazines on my mood board, I decided that I really wanted a light and simple look for my cover as sometimes the magazine can look very tacky if there is a lot going on, but it hasn’t been put together very well in the image.

In the magazine image, I have used the mise-en-scene to stereotype the typical student by placing them in a bright outdoor location with their file and smiling at the camera. Using this kind of image almost gives the ideology of the ideal student in my magazine, so I thought that this would be appropriate. Using the stereotype of such a student also goes against global stereotypes of students as most people of an older age group think of students as being trouble causers and that students are always up to no good, so I thought I would use this image to move away from this stereotype of the modern day student.

For the target audience of my magazine, it isn’t really aimed at a specific gender or anything, but I took the stereotype of a student at college after looking at examples of other magazines and decided that it would look a lot more like an actual college magazine if I used the stereotype of someone stood on the college grounds holding all of their work happily. Since the person that I photographed isn’t wearing a uniform it is quite clear that the main age group for this magazine is students; the lever arch that the person in the image is wearing is also an indicator to the age group that the magazine is targeted at.

WCM appeals to my target audience because I have included headlines about saving money, which is a well-known problem amongst students as there aren’t many jobs going for younger people in this modern economy, so I thought that to make it appeal to the target audience, I need to include some kind of advice page on the nationally renowned issue of money. I have also put a potential solution to this issue as I have included a competition where the prize is £500 in shopping vouchers so this would definitely attract students to buy and read the magazine if they have the chance of winning money for new clothes or something.

I have also written an article about the latest upcoming college parties that the students must not miss out on, so the magazine will appeal to my target audience by making them feel up to date on the latest social events that they should be going to and this could ensure ‘customer loyalty’ as people might pick up the magazine on a regular basis to keep checking the latest up and coming events that they want to attend.

The overall look of the magazine will appeal to the target audience also, I feel as it uses bright colours and it doesn’t feature a boring image that has no colour. The use of bright colour schemes and images gives the cover an overall feel of youth and energy, which is something that I feel, is essential to a college magazine, otherwise young people wouldn’t be interested in it.

When it comes to the technology part of the magazine, this is where I really struggled. I find it very hard to work with Photoshop at times and I make errors on a regular basis. For example, when trying to edit text that I have already placed on my image I tend to forget that I have to click on the specific layer and then try to edit the work, and I just end up deleting the piece of text because I think it’s not working. Before I had taken my images, I had already got a basic layout for the text and the barcode, but when it came to placing my image into the layout I also struggled; I didn’t realise that I had taken the image horizontally, so it wasn’t long enough to fit onto the A4 layout I had created, so I had to open it into a new page on Photoshop, enlarge it, and then place it back in the layout. This is because every time I tried to enlarge it in the layout, the layout and the image would both be enlarged and this wasn’t what I wanted to happen at all.

I feel that I am happy with my overall product in terms of my magazine, but if I had the chance to do this task again, I would look at camera angles and shots a lot more carefully to ensure that my image is 100% appropriate for the magazine. I would also try and make the ideology of the magazine a bit more relaxed and fun, as I feel like the language I used was quite formal so this is something I really need to look at when completing tasks in the future.

Overall, I think that I did reasonably well in this task and I am happy with the final outcome of my finished product. I feel that I did well in the overall making of the magazine cover, as I feel that my finished product really looks like a magazine a college would produce, however, I feel that I really struggle when it comes to the technical side of things and this is something that I really need to work on to ensure that my final product is up to the highest standard possible.

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