College magazine (first draft)

Altered image

This is my edited image for my college magazine, I had to make more than several alterations to the point where there had to be no background to suit my needs.

Original image

This was the original image I used for my college magazine

College magazine front cover 3

The main colour scheme is mainly white and blue; giving it a bright and cool atmosphere. The text at the sides are all different sizes and colour as well as font; it is very different which makes the cover look that more interesting and may even be a nod to the diversity in the college overall. But this particular magazine seems to lean more to teenage girls as it has a lot beauty tips and other various gossip; also the fact that there is a smiling girl on the front in glamorous dress indicates this more.  Her head is covering the title to show that she (or the student) is what is important. It is a long/medium shot to show off her glamorous look and would easily catch the eye of a passer-by.

The overall colour scheme of it is basic; but there is hardly any space that isn’t being used; which may hint at the college overall. It’s basic (which means it’s easy to move through) but nothing is wasted at all. But it is very busy for a front page; there are lots of cover lines that’s main focus is to promote different beauty tips and gossip; more things that mainly lean towards the female audience; it also uses some abbreviations and even some slang to make it more appealing to the younger audience.

College magazine front cover 2

The colour scheme for this particular colour scheme doesn’t seem to be that eye catching, the dominant colour is a light blue and the majority of the text is orange and a darker blue; and is spaced out in random areas. But the girl they have put on the front cover is looking directly at the camera (reader) with a smile on her face suggest that she enjoys the college, therefore making it a much better place to be; the fact that it is sunny would also suggest that the college will be bright too and everyone there is bright and will achieve whatever they want. It would seem that the magazine is more directed at girls as it is showing off popular culture among teen girls “GLEE” and “VAMPIRE DIARIES”. Simply having them could be enough to entice some of the readers in as they would want to read about something they enjoy.

The masthead is large and yellow and is very dominant in the top of the front cover and makes it visibly clear that this is a college magazine. The fact that the colours seem to be soft further proves the point that this magazine is aimed more at girls in college. It is simple but effective; although the scheme does look rather mundane it achieves in catching the audience’s attention by showing the girl being brightly lit by the sun and further more with the small texts at the side which would want the audience to have a look inside.  

College magazine front cover 1

The colour scheme to this is mostly dark, but with occasional splash of colour (yellow, purple, white) in there to make it stand out more. Compared to the previous magazine cover this one seems to be more aimed at men; simply because of its darker colours and the choice of predominately showing a man on the front cover. This front cover seems a lot more packed and seems to have a lot more to say hardly wasting any space at all. The text at the side once again is mainly in capitals and the titles are in bold so as to lure the reader in and see more; the choice to have the small story segment underneath is small so it would require the reader to have a much closer look and may even be forced to have a look inside and maybe even buy it. It is using words and phrases and sentences that are much more appealing to a college student than an adult  (mainly male) it talks about different events including a summer break which people would like to happen soon. The person on the front is holding books which would suggest further that he is in college and is raring to learn, the fact that he is also smiling is trying to show the audience that education is fun and would want more people to be a part of it.

Contents page of a magazine

This particular magazines contents page contains a fairly standard colour scheme of a light grey; the images that take up the centre of the image as these are what are going to catch the reader’s attention and if they like the look of the images shown then it would make them want to buy it. The images seemed to be surrounded by a robotic style board that goes off into different blocky directions; the images are displayed in a basic way though; none of them hog the “lime light” and stay in a specific pattern; they also show the page number they start on so the reader can easily flip to the one they want.

It is quite an unusual design and depends more on the visual aspect instead of the traditional text and the occasional image. It seems to showing the future of how magazine address themselves and are making it more visual for the reader; this could be because most people prefer to look at images instead of reading large chunks of text.

In the boxes below one of the features talks about other games that the magazine is going to cover and also gives the reader the pages to them. But the reason why the images at the top are so dominant is because that they are the latest games and would more likely entice a reader to buy the magazine.

There is another text box called “features” that seems to be only showing the titles for things that are not to do with the actual video game; and lean towards the technology and opinions and questions. This would be for the person that doesn’t want to only look at video games and would want to look on the technical (even political) side of gaming; which would further widen the magazine to more potential buyers.

The titles seem to share the same design scheme and look very robotic and slightly futuristic and look like the kind of font that would usually associated with gaming in general; also its exotic look would more than likely attract people’s eyes; the rest of the text is standard.

The target audience for this would be gamers in general; there is no actual gender choice as both genders and everyone of any age can play and enjoy video games. As long as the design scheme is for gaming and associates itself with gaming it can get whoever it wants to buy it (providing that the person is a gamer).

The contents page gives a brief screening on what is inside that particular issue of that magazine and gives enough information for the reader (potential buyer) to make up their mind whether or not they want to buy the magazine. It uses the large images of the games to attract them and also show them what is going to be inside which may be enough on its own; but with the added information in the boxes below would further their knowledge of the magazine without actually reading through it first. There isn’t much text and therefore people who read the contents page would not be bored reading it; because they don’t have the time to get bored.