Finished Student Magazine

Now i have finished my student magazine and i will be moving onto planning, creating and posting about my Music magazine.
Thank you for reading about my student magazine, until next time!

Evaluation

 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product hasn’t developed or challenged forms and conventions of real media products because I have stuck to the general magazine layout. On the other hand my magazine does differ from the real magazines because I have taken my own photos. I have also done some research into cover lines and what would be included in the contents page so that my magazine could look as real as possible.

My Magazine is different from the student magazine ect., because it has a different colour scheme, i have also used pictures of people. Whereas ect., has use cartoons. I think that by using pictures my magazine might appeal more because cartoons tend to look childish. Also ect., is more colourful than my magazine but again i think that if a magazine is too colourful it again looks a little childish.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents particular social groups which are teenagers more importantly students. I have represented them by keeping the topics that I have included within my magazine those of interest to my particular audience. I have done this by using the feedback I received from my questionnaire.

The images I have used are varied and show friends together to hopefully show my readers that this is a magazine for their age and social group. The language I have used would relate to my target audience because it is simple with no complicated words so that anyone of a wider audience would be able to read and understand my magazine.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The college might distribute it, even though we already have a college magazine, my magazine may also be sold. This way there are two student magazines and the students will have one to choose from. However mine might be better than the existing magazine because mine does not have the adult influence that the existing one does. This could mean that my magazine might appeal to the students more so than the existing one. To make my magazine more like the glossy and airbrushed magazines that appear in shops I would try to use technology that would hopefully give me the same high priced look to my magazine. This way my magazine might appeal more to my audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product are teenagers most probably 16+; gender does not matter because my magazine will appeal to both genders. More importantly, I have targeted students as my audience because my magazine is a student magazine. I have made sure my magazine will appeal to my target audience by, as I mentioned before, using the results I collected from the questionnaire I posted on my blog. With my magazine i have tried to make it more appealing to my target audience by including the topics of interest that were mentioned in the replies to my questionnaire. This way my magazine will be able to compete with other student magazines out in circulation.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attract and address my audience by using language that my target audience would be able to understand and relate to within my magazine. I include in my magazine pictures of students, bright colours and topics of interest to my target audience to make it attractive to my target audience. The front cover of my magazine is sophisticated looking, as well as the interesting cover lines and the strap line. These are the hooks that make people want to buy my magazine because of the pull to read the topics that the cover lines state or to see what the interesting picture on the front page links to. Someone would like to buy my magazine because of its interesting and professional look as well as its engaging topics of interest.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Whilst creating my magazine I have used Word and Publisher to outline some of my posts before I actually posted them. I have also used paint and Gimp to crop and edit my photos once I had taken them. This way they are not just normal photos they look more professional and look better overall. I used a blog to keep an account of what I have done whilst creating my magazine. It is useful as this way I can look back to previous posts and read over what I had said in an earlier post so that I am not constantly repeating myself post after post. I also used a digital camera to take the pictures that I needed. None of the photos that I have used are off the Internet, I have taken them all. I have learnt how to create and manage a blog. Also, I have learnt how to upload digital photos from a camera to my computer.

Magazine

 Now i have improved my magazine. I have tried to make the magazine as appealing to students (my target readers) as much as possible.

I have used the feedback i received from my questionnaire to fill the magazine's contents with the topics that were of interest to them. Hopefully i have made the pages as interesting as i can, and that this will attract my readers to purchasing the magazine.

The pictures that i used were the ones that originally wanted to use, i was concerned whether or not i would be able to use them after i had trouble editing two pictures. The picture that i put on the front page on top of the background image is of a group of friends. I put this there because i wanted my readers to see that this is a student magazine and that it is for people like them. Not for people who are airbrushed, but real people.
For the picture of the Paramore band i took a picture of a poster i had. I thought that if i included a picture of the band, then people who knew the name of the band but couldn't remember who they were would be reminded by this picture.
I have kept the colour scheme the same because i wanted the consistency of it. The colours that i am using look professional and mature, which makes it look like one of the glitzy magazines from a shop. s to

I liked the simplicity of it because it isn't complected or overcrowded with information, there is a nice balance between the pictures and information.

Hopefully i have made the magazine inviting for my target audience.

Magazine Draft

These are my drafts for my front page and my contents  pages of my student magazine. These are not my finished ones. I will post more of my magazine when i have made more changes to it. I am playing around with different ideas like the layout, the font size, where to place the pictures ect.

I have used the colour scheme that i mentioned in a previous blog, the red, white and black. I think that this is very effective as it sophisticated and professional. I want my magazine to have that feel to it, grown up and not just something put together over the period of 5 minutes. This way it will appeal to my readers because it looks like the read thing and not something made by students.

I need to put more information on my contents page as it is looking a little empty and i also have more cover lines to put onto my front page. i will also make my contents page more engaging, because, frankly at the moment it is looking rather bland. With adjustments in the layout and what information i have put within my pages.

My strip line is going to be the line underneath my headline, "Student Fees (Could you be paying more than you should be?)". I was thinking of rephrasing the line so that it was "Student Fees (are you paying more than you should be?)", this way it is shorter and snappier.

I was also thinking of putting an image on the front page, one of the ones that i am going to use in my contents page. With this there is a link between the cover lines on the front page and the page topics on the contents page.

Response to my Questionnaire

I have looked through the replies to my questionnaire and have found what students would like to see in a student magazine. Mostly their replies where the same but with some questions they varied.
These are the questions that i asked;

What concerns you about higher education?

What information would you like to see about higher education?

What matters interest you at the moment on the news?

Would you like to see a news page?

Does fashion interest you?

Would you like study tips?

Would you like ways to revise to be included? 

I have found that accommodation, cost of living and good courses are topics of interest for students. these particlaurly because once students leave college they are trying to find their way into the world. So having information about accommodation and courses out there will be a helping hand.
They would also like to see information about courses on offer, cost of living and the different universities that there are open to them. As well as news at the moment, environmental issues and politics are concerning the students at the moment, so i will include these in my student magazine. Fashion and study tips as well. With all of these topics of interest i will have a varied contents to my magazine.

Starting the Magazine

For my front cover of my student magazine i am going to keep it simple. I thought about using lower case for the headlines of both the front page and the contents page. Maybe using  text like this below,

In Addition...

 I like this style of writing as it is sophisticated, bold and easy to read.

For the title of my student magazine i have looked over the results of my poll for the title and found that it was a tie between In Addition and Student's Say. I have asked around and found that In Addition is the most popular. So i will use this. With In Addition, there are non standard punctuation (...) these i thought where effective as they look good as well as the appearance of them looks as though the magazine is inviting the readers to look inside to see what is included.


The layout of my magazine that i want to use is again simple. The colour scheme i hope will be the same as this. Maybe black, white and red.


The pictures that i want to use are...

 This picture i want to use as my front page. I will change it slightly to be a different colour, i was thinking of changing it to black and white. This way the coloured text on the page will stand out more.

These three pictures are also good to use because they are of course of students and they show the tight knit relationships that the students of Ludlow College have with each other. This is exactly the relationships i want to show.