To the left is my College Magazine cover; this is a summary and analysis of the text and what I wanted, as the creator, for it to mean and how it should make the reader respond.
Immediately you can tell that I have based the text's visuals on a cork board. The reason for me choosing this as a style is that it is an item that is associated with college and education, which informs the audience who it is aimed at: students. Also I felt it would give me some artistic flexibility as it can have various different things on it and can be moulded into a more interesting text to look at. The images used to make the background: cork board and a wooden frame, were both pictures taken by myself, meaning there are primary resources. The reason for choosing a wooden frame is because it is not only the traditional frame for a cork board, but also it suited the image well and does not draw your attention away to much from the images and words on the cover. To make the frame stand out a bit more and to make it more interesting I added a drop shadow, this makes it more visually interesting and adds a 3-D quality to it. Along with a drop shadow I added a stroke as this adds to the previous mentioned points, plus makes it bolder. Finally I added a satin to it as the original tone of the wood was too bright and didn't really match the cork.
From this I started to add the elements to it. I decided it would look good if some of the word text was written on paper of some sort, like you would on a corkboard, so I took a picture of some crumpled paper which I then cut down and made rough around the edges to make it look better. On this piece of paper I added my title. The title is very important on any magazine as it is what catches the attention of the reader. I called mine ’Cork Board’, reason being is because it was short, simple and that is what it literally was. I played around with the title, trying to make the font and size optimum for the magazine. I settled on this old type writer font, as this gave the image clear and relevant title. At first I wanted it to be quite thin and professional, but after re assessing I decided it wasn’t bold enough and wouldn’t grab the attention of the reader, which after all is the point. Along with the title on the paper, was the date, issue number and a motto. I used the same font to keep it uniform but made it smaller as the title is more important. What I decided to do to make it stand out more and to make it look more fun was add a double line under the motto and issue number and a highlight over the date. I did both of these in bright and outstanding colours, red and pink. The reason I wanted to do this was because it makes it more fun and down to earth, as this is what students did on their work to keep track. The make the highlight more realistic I made it a little opaque.
The images, of course, are massively important in the process of drawing the reader in. I decided that I did not want the whole page to be taken up by the image as then I wouldn’t be able to add other things on the cork board. So I decided to make the photos smaller, but still enough to be seen. After some advice I added a white backdrop for the photos as this makes them look like Polaroid’s, which is visually interesting and also is associated with impulse and fun as it’s on the spot. My images were all taken by me; I tried to create a fun and student atmosphere with these images, so I had my centre image as someone having fun with their hands in the air and then a smaller image of a student band lower down, this being a image that shows what is inside and to entice. Over these images I thought it would be a good idea to add little captions. For example: ‘Band Exclusive’, this not only tells the reader what the image is about but also makes it a bit more fun and to make it even more fun, I changed the font into a handwritten type font making it feel more informal. I also added a smiley face on the centre image, as this is commonly associated with teenagers etc. Finally I added another highlight over the centre image that informs the reader that this magazine is No.1, the best. This will further entice. I added a drop shadow on these Polaroid’s to make them more 3 dimensional.
One thing I took great care in was the language I used on my product, as it was aimed at students I had to make it more fun and down to earth, not formal as they wouldn’t read. So I shorted words like ‘magazine’ to ‘mag’ and used common student phrases: ’haha fun times’. All of this came together to create a more overall student feel.
To show what is inside I didn’t just have captions on my images, I also had tag lines. All of which were presented on a post-it-note, that I had created myself on Photoshop. This adds yet another interesting element to the text and is also associated with students. Like before I made the font a hand written one and underlined things to make them stand out.
The final things to talk about are the little bits around the text like the pins etc. These were all put where they are for a reason. The pins, of which I created myself, hold up the elements, like you would on a real cork board and also are dotted about added to the in formalness. The college logo was place in the top left to show where this magazine is from and the sticker on the top right explained the price; both of these were given drop shadows etc to make them stand out. The of course was the bar code which I placed out of the way at the bottom left.
My preferred reading for this text is a fun, down to earth magazine which will provide entertainment as well as information.
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