Evaluation
Before beginning work on my front cover and contents page I looked at similar magazines to see any common conventions that I should use in my magazine. This gave me a better understanding of what my magazine should look like and include. Firstly I looked at the original college magazine to see anything good about it now that should be kept in my new one. I also looked at what didn't work well and decided not to include this in mine. The original college magazine did not follow many common conventions of a magazine and overall looked too busy and unprofessional. I also looked at similar magazines that were more professional to get any more ideas of what to include. These seemed to follow the general conventions and looked more appealing. I created a survey to see what the target audience would like to see on the cover as these would be the people who would buy the magazine. Following their preferences and the general magazine conventions I started creation of my magazine. I chose to have the title at a size of 1/8 of the page as this was common on most magazines and made the title stand out. I include a single photo on the front as this made the magazine look less busy and confusing while also giving a professional look. The model on the cover is meant to represent the target audience so they can see that the magazine is aimed at them. I stuck to using only a small amount of colours to make the cover less confusing and give the magazine a concordant theme. The colours I chose represent the school as they are the same as the ones used on the logo. This made the purpose and aim of the magazine more obvious and showed that it was specific to the school, attracting students from the school who may be interested in the stories and news inside.
My product is aimed at the particular social group of students ages 11-19 as these are the ages of students at the college and therefore should be the ones who read it as the topics should interest them. From my survey I found that the most popular ages to read the magazine is ages 17-19 so I wanted to mainly target this audience. However I still wanted the younger audience to be attracted to the magazine as some still would read it. I have included some features with the main audience in mind to try and attract them to it. I include a similarly aged model to show the type of reader that would enjoy the magazine the most.
I think overall my magazine front cover and contents page look fairly good and match my aims for this task. I feel that my magazine would be better suited for students than the current magazine as I have designed it to be appealing to the age group that would read it. I have done this by looking at what the target audience is interested in and looking at what is used in other magazines to find what conventions I should follow. I still could improve my magazine cover and contents page. One way would be keeping a more concordant design throughout. My current pages do not have concordant colours or font. Changing this would make the magazine look more professional and give it a more complete look.
I think overall my magazine front cover and contents page look fairly good and match my aims for this task. I feel that my magazine would be better suited for students than the current magazine as I have designed it to be appealing to the age group that would read it. I have done this by looking at what the target audience is interested in and looking at what is used in other magazines to find what conventions I should follow. I still could improve my magazine cover and contents page. One way would be keeping a more concordant design throughout. My current pages do not have concordant colours or font. Changing this would make the magazine look more professional and give it a more complete look.
In short, through your prelim practical work you have shown basic ability in the following creative skills:
ReplyDelete* Producing material appropriate to the target audience and task
* showing some understanding of the convention of layout and page design
* Showing awareness for the need for a variety of fonts and text size
* accurately using language and register
* Using ICT appropriately
* Appropriately integrating graphics and text
* Shooting material appropriate to task set
* Manipulating photographs (e.g. resizing, cropping, colour adjustment)
However, when you progress to the main task you need to work on the following areas:
1) Think more carefully about typography choices
2) Think more carefully about layout (use Indesign or similar program to assist this process).
3) Follow existing genre conventions more closely.
PLANNING
In terms of your planning for the preliminary task, you have completed it demonstrating your time management is good. In terms of content, you have shown proficient/basic; research into similar products and target audience, work on flat plans and organisation of models/locations.
When you move onto your main task, to get the grade you are capable of, you need to:
1) Include more detail (genre, audience, institution, representation, media language)
2) Use more media terminology
3) Make sure you use a range of mediums on your blog (e.g. Prezi, imove, YouTube etc)
4) Make sure you include all the theory you learnt for the exam module
5) When you create your SurveyMonkey's you need to include a wider range of questions that will help shape your practical work.