Evaluation of Magazine Cover

Evaluation of College Magazine Cover

My final product demonstrates the basic conventions of a magazine well as it has a mast head, main image, headline, bar code and several cover lines. The cover lines aren’t positioned in the conventional left third but in the far right of the magazine, I decided to do this due to my research when I found an example of a magazine cover which did the same thing. I thought it was different and showed the unique quality of the magazine, perfect for showing the uniqueness of Wyke. The pattern in colour used for the cover lines make the cover more interesting and gives the magazine a sophisticated colour scheme. I chose the colour purple for the colour scheme of the magazine as it is supposed to be the ideal colour, it connotes good judgment and spiritual fulfilment, which gives the readers the impression that when they finish Wyke they will be fulfilled as they will have achieved good grades.  The main image follows the conventions of a normal magazine as they usually focus on one subject could link to an article in the magazine. The image is showing a girl stood in the Wyke building holding some books with a smile on her face, this denotes that she is happy to be at college and works hard. As she is looking at the camera it’s as if she is looking at the readers to show her success in college and how other students can be successful too. I chose to call the magazine the ‘Wyke Warbler’ as ‘Warbler’ sounds quite old fashioned and today old fashioned tends to be modern so I chose this name to appeal to the target audience of the 16-18 year olds that go to Wyke College.  When you say the name it sounds quite catchy due to the alliteration in the name, making students more likely to pick it up and read the magazine. On the cover I used a conventional bar code to show that the magazine is professional and it makes it look even more like an actual magazine.

My media product represents the typical students that go to Wyke by the image on the cover, the girl looks like a normal college student, she is dressed casually and holding some books which puts her into the stereotype of a student. She is surrounded by other people that go to the college showing the environment that students are in every day and they don’t look all the same, they all dress differently and have their own styles which show how teenagers are viewed by other people. All the students including the model look like they are in all one particular age group which represents how old you have to be to go Wyke. However, if I were to do my product again, I may take a picture of a model outside one of the Wyke buildings to reinforce that it is actually the Wyke college magazine.

I appealed to my target audience by including topics on the cover lines which may interest them or maybe something that they may need help with, or may be particularly worried about. For example, ‘Check out the perks of NUS’ draws the audience in as the students will get the idea by reading this cover line that they may get free gifts, save money and other freebies by buying an NUS card. ‘Upcoming college parties’ also appeals to the target audience as many students think parties are a part of college life and if they have the chance to go to a party most students are likely to be very interested. The font of the mast head, cover lines and main headline is modern and eye catching, students don’t want to be reading something which may come across as old fashioned so the text makes it more likely that they are going to pick the magazine up and read it.

When producing my product I developed my skills in Photoshop even more, I used different blending options on the text and I’m now more aware of the fonts that you can use. To put a bar code on the cover I had to take one from Google Images, when transferring this into Photoshop I had the problem that the white background was still there and this looked odd against my main image. To overcome this problem I learnt how to use the magic wand tool which quickly selected all the white parts of the bar code so I was then able to delete them from the image. Some parts of the white were still left over so I learnt how to use the background eraser too which got rid of the white parts and replaced it with the background underneath.  I also managed to adjust the brightness of the image which made the text stand out more and made it so the image didn’t look as dark. I am more confident using the spot healing tool which allowed me to erase any blemishes on the models face therefore making the image look more professional.