AS MEDIA

Evaluation of College Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page.

UNIT G321- PRELIMNARY TASK-

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

(FRONT COVER)

Masthead

Main cover line

Cover lines

Medium-close up cover photo.

Rule of thirds used as well as fairly

plain background.

My magazine cover includes and uses many different forms and conventions of a typical media product.

- My masthead used the entire top third of the front cover as is common of most mastheads to draw attention to the magazine.

- My main cover line was bold and stood out from the rest however maybe it should have been made clearer it was the main selling line as this is a key convention of magazines. I used other cover lines much like all magazines do to attract the reader and interest them with the features included in the magazine.

- Although my example of a magazine on the first slide (VOGUE) does not include a barcode it is, again a key convention of a magazine. However, some magazines do not choose to use this on the front cover, I did as I feel it adds to the professional aspects of the magazine and is more practical.

- I used a typical Medium Close Up(MCU) shot for the front cover of my magazine as almost every magazine in the industry would use this convention. My photo was appropriate for the magazine ‘Student Life’ as well as being a successful shot. However, if I were to take the photo again I would slightly change the positioning so it fitted into the rule of thirds better.

THE MAIN DIFFERENCESThe main difference between my front cover and the VOGUE front cover are;

- My magazine is aimed at college students, so cover lines are aimed at them and about typical college topics.

- My image is again different as it has been made appropriate for a college magazine, although it is still a medium close up. The pose of the student in my magazine is much friendlier and simple which is ideal for a college magazine where as Emma Watson’s VOGUE cover uses a more fashion based shot, which is again appropriate for that specific magazine as the idea is for readers to idolise her, I wanted my readers to relate to my shot.

- The colours I have used are aimed at both genders, this is to appeal to my entire target audience as opposed to just females for example. I feel like blue is a bright bold colour that is attractive to both genders as well as being capable of grabbing attention and looking professional.

- I have included a website address on my front cover as I feel it would improve the readers interaction with the magazine and the contents of it.

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

(CONTENTS)

Masthead used on contents

page

Main image on the page is a long shot and

advertises features

Advertising website address

Smaller images used to display other

features

Page numbers and

descriptions of features are given to attract and

inform.

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

I have used..

By using the digital camera I was able to take an appropriate and Medium Close Up (MCU) shot for my student magazine. It helped me learn about the important of the rule of thirds and how I could take a successful shot. Also after taking my first set of photos, I realised background was essential and should be plain so that it doesn’t distract from the model or the cover lines, masthead etc… of a magazine. I included a folder in my shot to make it more relatable for students and made sure the model had a friendly and positive expression to make her seem approachable. If I could improve the shot I would possibly make the models face fit more into the centre third to leave room for cover lines and also I would not leave the slight gap I have in the top third.

I used Adobe Photoshop to make my front cover image better quality and also to add text and other conventions of a typical magazine. I personally felt the levels of the colours and lighting was already of a good quality but I used the red-eye tool to eliminate any red eye in my cover photo. I also learnt how best to use the text tool to add different fonts, colours and sizes to my magazine to make cover lines stand out, especially the main cover line and masthead. I learnt how to use drop shadow and stroke on all of my cover lines to add emphasis and make them stand out against a contrasting background. I feel this made the cover look more professional and was fairly easy to learn. Overall I found Photoshop a useful tool that it easy to learn to use considering it is of industry standard.

I used Blogger as means to keep a diary of all my coursework and to explain all the stages of my development. I found it fairly easy to use once I got the hang of it and enjoyed uploading various stages of my work to the blog. I learnt about exported images and changing the document format to make it easier to upload photos and documents that I had already created. I found it was fairly self explanatory once I’d learnt the basics.

I used InDesign to create my contents page. This included placing images, creating and adding text and copying and uploading my masthead which was created in Photoshop over to my InDesign document. I found it fairly similar to Photoshop to use as the tools were very similar. I found it easy to place images and fit them to the frame correctly which was a massive help when creating my contents page. The only difficulty I had was copying my masthead over from Photoshop which once I had learnt how to do, was actually very easy. I also found InDesign a very useful way of choosing how to layout my page and make sure I was using the rule of thirds the best way I could, it was fairly easy to set out columns and boxes appropriately. The only thing I would have liked to learn more about was how to add colourful backgrounds or shapes etc… as I feel my contents page was fairly plain and there was a lot of dead space.