Evaluation

Before I started making and analysing any magazine, I firstly I started looking at the common conventions of every magazines so it would give me a better idea of how to make it look professional and more like a real magazine. I started by looking at my college magazine which doesn't fit to its target audience because it doesn't look very professional and the magazines front cover was just to busy. After looking at the magazine I wanted to go against everything that this magazine was, so I done a survey monkey to see what actual students (who are the target audience) wanted there magazines to look like and what they wanted it to be named. On my front cover I used one main image and some little images which sticks to the common conventions of a magazine, my target audience said that they wanted a catchy mast head on the cover of the magazine, which I also used and stuck to the convention of having it 1/8th of the page. On the front of my schools college magazine there is too many pictures and the writing blends into the background with it, so on my magazine cover it tried to stay well away from doing that by using high quality photos and sticking to the common conventional layout of having the little images with writing around it linking the images with some story that's in the magazine.

My products are aimed at people aged from 11-19 because these are the ages from when you start secondary school and leave sixth form or college and I want them to be interested in it because its there schools magazine and its about things that happen at there school, on the survey monkey I found that the it was all 14-16 year olds that read this magazine but that could be for a number of reasons such as I have more friends on facebook who are aged between that, etc. However as my results said that was the age range that reads it the most I would have to make my magazine appeal more to that age range more than someone aged between 11-13 as there is a higher chance of 14-16 year olds reading it. Because the students I'm creating the magazine for are mostly in higher education this goes against Adolescence in 2 volumes that Stanley hall wrote in 1904 where he came up with the 'storm and stress model' that states 'adolescence is inherently a time of storm and stress when all young people go through some degree of emotional and behavioural upheaval before establishing a more stable equilibrium at adulthood' he also said that 'criminal activity would increase at the ages of 12 & 24' my magazine is goes against this theory as it shows students being positive and happy and that they are staying in school and not causing madness and mayhem, I used mainly bright colours to shows that this school is a bright and vibrant place.

My target audience is mainly the students that attend the school and sixth form as on the front cover and contents page it has things that will involve them, so the stories will need to appeal to what interests them so they will pick the magazine up and read it. But as the main age range that will be reading my magazine are aged between 14-16 I had to put stories in there that would interest them (such as prom and GCSE) the secondary audience for my magazine will be the students parents or guardians because they will obviously be interested in what's going on in there child's school life. Having said this the content needs to appeal to the students but also give there parents information on what's going on. I made sure I attracted my target audience through a colour scheme that the colours didn't contrast and didn't look messy, I made sure my cover page had a simple layout and wasn't to aggressive to read, I included stories on the cover page that would suit my target audience such as 'exam stress? Tips to help calm the nerves' and also features a collection of classes students could attended.

Overall I think my contents and front page came out better than I thought it would as they stuck to the common exceptions which helped me to keep it to appeal to the target audience, I think that if my magazine was handed out around the school more people would pick it up and read it instead of just putting it straight into the bin as it appeals more to them and its easy to read and involves everyone. I still think improvements could have been made if I spent more time on it such as making it more gender neutral as the cover looks a bit girly but I will incorporate those ideas into my main task and hopefully improve from this in the future.

Typography - I tried to stick to all the same fonts and use different fonts and colours for different kinds of things. I used different colour to make it stand out of the page so it would be eye catching and interesting. As if all the text was the same and the colour was the same it would get a bit boring and look really dull. I used professional colours for the text such black and deep red on a white/light grey background.

Images - the images I have used are in high quality and look good with eachother on the contents page there is a main image a 3 little images which sticks to the common convention. I made sure that the three little images are all the same size and at the same angle as that instantly makes the magazine look more professional and tidy, its also the same with the main one is a high quality image which also makes the magazine look instantly more professional. On the front cover there is a main image which instantly draws the readers eyes to it and as it is the main image its a high quality, and it would make the reader want to continue as it looks professional

Conclusion - I think the contents page fits well as it serves its purpose of giving the reader all the main information that they would want to know before they continue reading the magazine without making it look to in your face, I think the overall contents page does look plain and simple and doesn't have the 'wow factor' however it serves its purpose and that's what its there for. The improvement that could be made is I could have put more information or facts on the contents page to make it more to look at for the reader.