Front Cover Draft of Student Magazine

I started drafting my front cover on Microsoft Publisher. I don't have any pictures from the photoshoot as I am yet to do the photoshoot, so this is my draft of the front cover:

Planning the Photoshoot for Student Magazine

I have planned my photoshoot and chosen a model. I just need to find a time and place to take the pictures. I want to have a white background as my magazine colour scheme is going to be black, red and white. I chose a model with dark hair as light hair would've clashed with the white background. 

Mast Head Fonts for Student Magazine

After finally deciding I'm going to call my magazine "St-Eds Magazine" (creative, I know) I went on a webiste called "DaFont" and looked at different variations of fonts to use for my headline.

I narrowed the choices down to all the Sans Serif fonts, as my magazine is a modern magazine directed at a young audience, and these are the ones I liked best:

Next, I mixed and matched the different fonts and tried out lots of combinations of "St-Eds" and "magazine" to see which ones suited best.

Here are the combinations I created:

My final decision was to go with number 4, as it is modern and will appeal to a lot of young people. 

My First Time

So I used photoshop for the first time. We were given a sample picture of a crab dish to turn into a cook book. This is the sample image:

I had to cut the crab out of the image which was really difficult for me. Trying to get the cut out of the crab to be exact and perfect was frustrating. I took a little more time than the rest of my class on that one.

I then had to cut the lemon out, which was a little easier but still incredibly frustrating. I managed to do it before I started to contemplate giving up. After playing around with the different tools, this is my final product:

Not even going to lie, I'm pretty proud of this now. 



Analysis of Audience Questionnaire Answers (Student Magazine)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I handed out a questionnaire to 10 people in relation to their opinons of student newspapers. Their answers were unsuprising to me, here they are:

1. How many student magazines have you read?
• 0 - 5 (10 students)
• 6 - 10 (0 students)
• 10 + (0 students)
2. Would you still read the magazine if no one you knew was mentioned in it?
• Yes (4 students)
• No (6 students)
3. Would you prefer it if the magazine was more picture-based or text-based?
• Picture-based (10 sudents)
• Text-based (0 students)
4. What sort of thing would you mostly hope to read about in a student magazine?
• Homework/Exams (1 tick)
• Current school events (6 ticks)
• Teachers (2 ticks)
• Students (6 ticks)
• Other (please specify) Gossip                                                                                
5. How often should there be a student magazine?
• Weekly (3 students)
• Monthly (5 students)
• Fort-nightly (0 students)
• Termly (2 students)
6. What interests you most about the front cover?
• Picture (7 ticks)
• Headline (5 ticks)
• Coverlines (1 tick)
7. How much would you buy the student magazine for?
• £0 - £0.99 (9 students)
• £1 - £1.99 (1 student)
• £2 + (0 students)
8. Do you read the student magazine in detail or just skim through it?
• Read in detail (2 students)
• Skim through (8 students)

So, 10 out of the 10 students stated they had never read over 5 student magazines in their lives. That was very predictable, it's not exactly the most exciting magazine in the world. For the second question however, there were mixed opions. Although, as I would've guessed, more people said they wouldn't read the magazine if no one they knew was mentioned in it. Probably the first thing you do when you recieve a student magazine is looking for embarrassing pictures of your friends. Following up from that, all of the students asked said they would prefer the magazine to be picture-based, understandably. I don't think I know anyone who genuinely reads the magazines.

For question 4, I didn't make it clear that they were only meant to tick one box, so the majority of my participants ticked multiple boxes. So I'm going to go with the most popular subject the students want to read in the magazine and that's students joint with current school events. In other words, everyone just wants to read up to date gossip about students, which is what somebody admitted in the "others" option.

Most students said that there should be a student magazine every month, making it a regular thing. The student magazine in my school at the moment has an issue every term, so it's understandable that a more regular issue would be favoured umongst students.

For question 5 also, they ticked multiple boxes. When it came to what attracted them most about the front cover, I was actually surprised to think that the "headline" was so popular with 5 ticks. I didn't even think students cared what the magazine was called. Of course, winning at 7 ticks was the picture, but only one person ticked the coverlines which I found shocking. Personally I only read the coverlines to see if the magazine is going to interest me or not, it's strange to think that not many other people do that.

Last but not least, obviously 8 people out of 10 only skim through the magazine and 2 people genuinely read it in detail. I found it quite surprising that 2 people actually did read the magazine to be honest.

Analysis of Student Magazines

This magazine is called 'College Lifestyle'. Since there are no younger years in college, the magazine would be more mature. The magazine is a termly one, so all the stories would be seasonal.

The headline is the same for each magazine, keeping it recognisable and consistent. Although the colour-scheme changes with each issue. The colour-scheme is, however, always kept mature but still attracts young people. There is no overuse of colour, instead it is very subtle.

The coverlines are aimed at college students with topics they can relate to such as technology ("Why We Love Blackberry"). There's also stories relating to current events; this issue was published before a holiday season, so there is an article called "The Ultimate Spring Break Escape" that students will be interested in for their holiday.

The cover photo is of a college student, this will attract other students as they will see he is in their age group and easily recognise that this magazine is aimed for students. It's a very professional and attractive photograph making it more appealing to young people. The magazine seems more welcoming because the cover photo is of someone smiling to show that he's enjoying college.

The majority of the font used is Sans Serif giving it a modern and clean affect that is appealing to young people. There are not many different fonts used and most of the fonts are very similar. This continues to help the magazine seem mature as it is easy to read and there is no exaggeration of different fonts.

This magazine is also a student magazine, but is a lot different than the previous one I analysed. This one includes more information about young culture, music and celebrities, whereas the previous magazine included more information about school, work and college lifestyle.

The mast head is in the middle of the magazine which is quite unusual for a magazine to do. This is probably because there are not many coverlines so they can use more of the space. In the top-right corner of the magazine, it states that it is free in big letters to draw attention to it.

The coverlines that are included just mention names of celebrities with no other information about them, this shows how this particular issue features these celebrities in it, making students want to know what it says.

At the bottom of the magazine it shows advertisements, so obviously the magazine is very popular but if it is free, it will need another source of funding. There is also the link to the magazine written at the bottom, so there is additional information online. All the writing on the cover of this magazine is written in Sans Serif to attract a modern reading audience.

Here is the contents page of "Stu-Mag" magazine:

The contents page is very simple. There is very little colour keeping to the mature modern theme shown with the cover page. There is a filtered image in the corner to continuing showing that the magazine is for sudents as it uses pictures you would normally see on social networking websites such as "instagram".

In the top left corner of the page, there are the page numbers next to the page titles to help the reader find their way around the magazine. On the right hand side of the page are the credits from who contributed into the making of the magazine and underneath that are the contact details. Usually this would be at the back of the magazine or towards the end but because the magazine is so short, there is very little room to drag out the pages.

The font used here is all the same, it is a Sans Serif font and there is no variation. This is to keep the contents page simple and easy to read.

Audience Questionnaire (Student Magazine)

To help me with my research on what my student magazine should include, I put together a questionnaire and handed it out to 10 people aged 16-18.

These were the questions I asked:

1. How many student magazines have you read?
• 0 - 5
• 6 - 10
• 10 +
2. Would you still read the magazine if no one you knew was mentioned in it?
• Yes
• No
3. Would you prefer it if the magazine was more picture-based or text-based?
• Picture-based
• Text-based
4. What sort of thing would you mostly hope to read about in a student magazine?
• Homework / Exams
• Current school events
• Teachers
• Students
• Other (please specify)
  ___________________________________________________
5. How often should there be a student magazine?
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Fort-nightly
• Termly
6. What interests you most about the front cover?
• Picture
• Headline
• Coverlines
7. How much would you buy a student magazine for?
• £0 - £0.99
• £1 - £1.99
• £2 +
8. Do you read student magazines in detail or just skim through it?
• Read in detail
• Skim through

Action Plan for Student Magazine

1. Week beginning: 18/11/13
• Set up blog
• Write up action plan
• Research existing magazines
• Audience Questionnaire
2. Week beginning: 25/11/13
• Plan photoshoot
• Font designs
• Start making pages
3. Week beginning: 2/12/13
• Take photos
• Finish making pages
• Evaluate
4. Deadline: 6/12/13