College Magazine Evaluation

The college magazine went well because of the original photography I took. I made sure the pictures captured were relevant to the information on the front cover and contents page. For example my main cover line “Rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted” links the cover image of a girl holding books meaning that she is good asset to the college.  I then manipulated the main image on Photoshop using airbrush tool to take off any blemishes in the picture to use on my front cover. The 4 pictures used on the contents page were not manipulated as they were small.

The page layout for my front cover went well as most of the text and images were placed on the page appropriately for the audience to see the information clearly. In the same way the contents page layout went well as I broke the page into 2 columns to make it easy for the audience to read and navigate the information.

The fonts used for my text was good because I made sure the text was a font that would be bold and easy to read. I used ‘Rockwell Extra Bold’ for the masthead, main cover line on the front cover and the titles on the contents page. I used ‘Rockwell’ for most of the text on both pages and ‘Arial’ was used for the editor’s note. Overall this was my house style. My target audience, students would most likely to be attracted to a magazine that is visually attracting in colours.

I had a colour scheme for the magazine which was dark red, white and black. This made the magazine eye catching and consistent. I decided to use these colours because I knew these colours would be good together as they are bold colours which are used to attract the audience.

However there are still spaces for improvements. For the front cover page I would improve the masthead ‘LSC’ by outlining the words in black as this would make the masthead stand out more, also for the cover line titles I would outline it in white so it would also stand out. Additionally I would manipulate the main image further by making the background completely red (making the background 1 colour) by using the colour sample tool to get the exact colour red for the background. This would make the cover lines easy to read; also I would make the skyline go on top of the front cover as this is where it is meant be.

For the contents page I would improve the quality of the pictures by improving my photography skills by planning the photography into more detail by probably producing something similar to a photography call sheet as it would make things more organised. I will also make the contents more detailed by writing a more thorough summary of what the articles are about. In the same way I would add more information about the Leyton Sixth Form College website and Moodle to make the contents page have more text.

I then got audience feedback about the college magazine. Most of the comments were positive. One person said “I like what you have done with your student magazine. Room for improvement is on your front cover where the text on the left is not onto one side as well as the fact that the black does not stand out especially with the fact that your hair is black.” I agree with this comment because the cover lines are blending with parts of the image. Another person said “I think it's very good and it also very colourful and eye catching; the colour scheme goes very nicely with the contents page and font of the magazine. The logo’ is large and clear like the entire magazine.” I also agree with this comment as I made sure there was a clear colour scheme for the magazine so the information and images would be eye catching to the audience as it is constant colour.  Then another person said “I really like the layout of your contents page, I like how you have an editor’s letter. The colour scheme is very consistent. I just think that the 2 cover lines on your left on the front cover could maybe be another colour as it sort of does clash and isn't completely visible.”  I again agree with this person. I thought having an editor’s note would make the contents page more sophisticated and professional for the purpose of a college magazine.

The three developments I would consider when producing the main task of the music magazine is one, using professional photography for the images by using a better camera and using a studio as this would make the images of the magazine professional and less blurry  Two, using creative cover lines such as teasers which would attract the audience to want to read the magazine by using language devices such as rhetorical questions and puns; and three, to continue to develop my Photoshop and InDesign skills to make the outcome of the magazine even better by watching YouTube videos of how to use the software tools and getting help in class.

I got a B overall. My teacher said "starts a little vague and descriptive but good evaluation of kills and feedback from peers, also clear goals for main task. Good.