analysis of front cover magazines

I will now compare three magazines which are very different. The three magazines I will now compare are ‘teen VOGUE’, ‘COLLEGE’ and ‘Heat'

The target audience for this magazine would be teenage girls and boys age 11-16. The use of the main image of the model, Miley Cyrus a singer and an actor is a great way of targeting young teenagers because she has a lot of fans who would buy this magazine. She is wearing a white dress with daisies in her hair, natural make-up with a soft but fun smile, this makes her look innocent and sweet. Young youths will be influence by her which another great way of reaching out to their target audience. The subjects of the cover lines beauty, dresses, swimsuits makes it look like a girl’s magazine but if you read the other cove lines ‘girl hot vs. guys hot,’ is a popular selling line for both male and female, ‘earth angel’ suggest that it might also be aimed at boys. The masthead is normally behind the main image however here it is placed on top of the main image but it does not affect the picture because of the way it is being placed. Both the image and masthead stands out. The different colours and font that are used purple, green and yellow can relate to both genders and also help the reader to know the different articles that are featured in the magazine. They are very eye catching; the main cover line is in big front than the rest of the cover lines because shows its importance.

This is also a student magazine cover with medium close up of a male student standing in the middle of the frame, holding books about law, business and society which immediately tells the reader what this magazine is all about. This magazine also shows the model’s smile and posture is very inviting, relaxed which has a positive denotation. The costume of the model is formal. The model is portrayed as an educated person this shows the seriousness of the magazine but for a youthful audience. The target audience for this magazine is very clear, it’s aimed at male student age 16-19 or above due to the fact that students sometimes are a lot older in college. However this magazine might also be aimed at female students as they will be more attracted to the cover due to the handsome model that has been used. This magazine has been called a ‘College Lifestyle’ and has stuck to the codes and conventions of a magazine the use of three colours black , green and white which is very affective and which is a man’s stereotype instead of a woman’s.

The masthead is at the top of the page behind the model and the use of the colour green is eye catching and it stands out. Also the cover lines are both on the left and right sides of the frame, in different font sizes and the colour green and white. The cover lines have been placed so that the main image is not covered and the page not overcrowded, simple yet refined. The main cover line is shown clearly as it has bigger font.

Heat was launched in February 1999 published by Bauer Consumer Media and in 2004 became biggest selling magazines in the UK, with a regular circulation over half a million

Heat magazine is an entertainment that features, gossip, celebrity news, fashion, TV listings celebrity interviews. The target audience of ‘HEAT’ would be female age 16 and above because everyone does like bit of gossip. There is a lot going on in this front cover. The main cover line on the frame is features two contestant from x-factor Alexandra Burke and Stacey Solomon about their body, the font is big and in pink and covers half of the page which catches the reader’s attention straight away. This picture is a paparazzi shot and  this makes the reader want to read on to find out who has what shape of body and what people think of it. There are other cover lines in different colours and accompanied by pictures at the top and bottom of the page that shows what other articles are featured in the magazine. The other cover lines and pictures have smaller fonts so that they do not distract the reader from the main cover line and pictures. The mast head is in large, bold red font which represent ‘heat’ makes it sound more dramatic. The ‘Heat’ magazine uses words like ‘new’ or ‘exclusive’ and exclamatory mark to make everything sound interesting and tell let them know that they can only get this information in the magazine.

The ‘teen VOGUE’ magazine did not follow the codes and conventions of a magazine because it has no barcode and no price on the front cover whereas ‘COLLEGE’ and ‘Heat’ both have a barcode and price. Also ‘College’ magazine used three colours, again also following the conventions but ‘teen vogue’ and ‘Heat’ have used more than three therefore would have had to pay a lot more for printing and has not followed the conventions. These magazines have different target audience because ‘teen VOGUE’ is age 11-16 and ‘Heat’ 16 and above. Both of these magazines looks informal whereas ‘COLLEGE’ is age 16-19 and it looks more formal. ‘teen VOUGE’ and ‘ COLLEGE’ have used one image for their front cover but ‘Heat’ has used more than one.

Steps in creating my contents page

My final evaluation of my front cover and contents page

When creating my college magazine I have challenged the codes and conventions of other school magazines. I researched other school magazine to get ideas of how my product should look like. I have focused on the conventions of real magazine such as masthead, barcode, cover lines, date and selling lines which I have used as a guide to create my college magazine. These conventions can also be broken. There are minor and major aspects of a magazine that I have used to make my magazine look professional. To follow the code and conventions I had to use colour schemes of around 3 colours. I have broken this convention because I have used five which would cost me more to print, on like using three colours which would have cost me less.

Following the codes and conventions I used a main image, which I took at medium close up and manipulated I Photoshop by cropping the image and giving it a new background. To make it look more suitable and professional for a school magazine. On my front cover I have broken the codes and conventions by placing my masthead on top of my main image when it’s meant to be behind the main image but I also followed the conventions by making my masthead bold and placing it on top of the page.

I have used different digital technology such as Microsoft power, Photoshop, InDesign to help me create my magazine cover.

My media product audience is mainly aimed at student age 16-19 years, which is the age that student are believed to be in college. However, there would be students who are a lot younger at college or older so it could appeal to them. Colour. My magazine would be used to promote the college, to influence student study more. Also when parents come to visit the college they would know what is going on in college by reading the magazine. During the process of creating my school magazine I have learned a lot of techniques especially on InDesign, playing about with different layout, colours and text.

In Photoshop and InDesign I have learned basic image editing techniques from producing my school magazine for examples by cropping out pictures and using different background colour and playing about with certain images so they appear more suitable for my cover. I have also gained an understanding about the conventions of a school magazine in team’s conventions in layout content and colour schemes. The thing that I would do differently is my background colour as the colour of my front cover and contents page are not the same, it makes it look a little bit like two different magazine.  My magazine cover is too simple and plain I could have added other pictures or use my colours creatively. 

Draft front cover and contents pages

Contents page

This is my contents page for my college magazine. I use a long shot and not a medium shot because I wanted the movement that is been held by the two dancers to be seen clearly. I also used this picture to show what else is in the magazine also two female so that the magazine wouldn’t look like it’s just for boys but for girls also. My magazine is monthly so that we will get as much information for the next issue and also get a lot more attention. On the left hand side of the magazine below the picture is an editor’s note to the reads telling them want this months magazine features. I decided to use a darker blue colour for the content page background to make it a little bit different from the front cover. I placed the magazine website on the bottom right corner so that people will be able to visit the website.

There will be 7 feature articles that will presented in my magazine                                      

·         Revision tips

·         Nus Extra- Student Discounts

·         Halloween – Ten top tips

·         UCAS- how to get help with your ucas application

·         Take the stage- How talented are you?

·         Black History Month

·         Oscars – who won?

Two news

·         Rise in university tuition fees

·         A* could be limited

Five Regulars

·         Letters

·         Crosswords

·         Sports

·         Chaplaincy 

·         Words from the principle

Creating, planning and draft of my front cover

My next step was to take a picture of a student. I asked my friend who was sitting down in a class room, doing some revision if I could take a picture and he agreed. I used a medium shot for my camera angle and cropped out the background because I wanted the main focus to be on him reading a book not the class. This shows that he is a hard working student which will give a good impression on the college and also influence other students to study. For the costume, he is wearing normal daily clothes, which is relevant because you are able to tell that he is a college student.

This image shows what shot I have used and other types of camera shot. I then sketched out how I wanted my magazine to look with the picture I have taken.

Sketch on my front cover

After I sketched my front cover I then had to create this same design and manipulate it on Photoshop then using InDesign to do my cover lines, masthead, selling lines, date line and barcode.

Before uploading my picture I had to first create a background for my cover. I opened adobe Photoshop CS3 then created a new file document. I named my file and set it to international paper and chose A4 page and I clicked saved.

I was now able to start my background by using the rectangular box in the tools and I drew it over the page with my mouse, then double clicking the background colour light blue. I chose this colour because it stands out from the orange jumper my model is wearing and also it’s really eye catching and I thought other colours made the cover look dull.

Background  

 I then went to edit, fill, background colour, ok. Finally I named the new layer ‘bk’ and unlocked it. I was then able to place my image by going to file open, click the picture that I needed then ok. Using my lasso tool, starting with my magnetic tool, I cropped out the whole background only leaving my model and his book.  Every time I selected an area to crop with my magnetic tool and later with my polygonal tool to eras the area that my magnetic tool couldn’t get to. I had to click feather-ok- then delete the area and then pressed Cntl D. The background that I have selected appeared behind it after erasing the background of the picture. I used the polygonal to fine the tune parts of my picture. By using my magic wand tool and selecting the area I wanted to subtract and then I right clicked select inverse and edit copy, edit paste. I name my new layer ‘j’, created new layer for my background alone, edit fill-ok then naming my new layer again. Now I’m ready to use InDesign.

In InDesign the first thing I did was to create a new document and when it finally opened I drew on the blank paper with the rectangle box tool across the paper and a layer was created and I named it ‘bk’. I also created other layers for my cover lines, masthead, selling lines, date, and main cover line. The next thing I did was to bring my picture and background in to InDesign by selecting the layer ‘bk’ clicking on file, place and then fit to frame. I then right clicked and pressed display performance and I set it on high.

The next thing I did was to use my text tools to create my cove line, masthead and other lines. The font I used for my title was Broadway, the reason why I selected this font was because it was simple not too complicated and appropriate for my cover design.  I did not want my mast heading to be any other colour but black because having any other colour would not make it professional. It’s not in your face but still eye catching.

When designing my selling line I used the same font but made the size small because selling line are not meant to be the same size as the masthead. However the selling line is as important as the masthead. Underneath the mast heading on the right I placed the date and on the bottom right I placed the barcode and price. All magazines have a date line and a barcode so that’s my reason for also putting then on my magazine. Doing my cover lines became very complicated and difficult, not knowing where to place them without the cover looking over crowded. I had to remember that I couldn’t cover his face. This was challenging because it took me the longest time to do. I had to choose different front colour that was presentable and not too wild. I chose the colours, white, yellow, because they stood out the most from the background colour, orange because I didn’t want to lose the theme of Halloween, Pink because I thought that the magazine was becoming too masculine as the background was blue and my model was a male so using the colour yellow, white, black and pink will relate to both male and female.