Target Audience (College magazine)

I will specify my choice of audience using Demographics and Psychographics.

Demographics are used to group using quantitative data about their age, gender and Socio-Economic Group.   The age groups included in Demographics are:

·         15 and under

·         15-24

·         24-35

·         35-55

·         55 and over

As college students are aged between 16 and 18 none of these groups are very specific for my target audience, I will use the age group 15-24 and my magazine will target both genders to appeal to a larger market of students.

In terms of Socio-Economic Groups the majority of students are unemployed or have part time work therefore they fall into E Social group where casual labours, unemployed and state pensioners are held. Resulting in a lot of students having a finance budget, after taking all of this into consideration i will make my magazine free to attract more students who previously wouldn't buy a college magazine as they couldn't afford it.

Psychographics are about people’s views and personalities. This system collects data called (IAO) variables. The VALS system (Values And Life Styles) can categorise in terms of physiological characteristics. There are 4 main categories:

·         Group driven by needs: Survivors, Sustainers

·         Group who are outer-directed: Belongers, emulators, achievers

·         Groups who are inner-directed: I-am-me, experientalls, society conscious

·         Groups who are outer & inner-directed: Integrated

In terms of VALS, I will be aiming at interesting those both outer-directed and inner-directed giving me a larger audience.

Magazine Photographs Prezi (College magazine)

Photographs for my College Magazine on Prezi

Brief (College Magazine)

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP(Publisher)


The presentation of the research, planning and evaluation will be completed using a blog!

The conventions of a Magazine cover (College and Music magazine)

• Masthead Title Piece - This is the magazines title and is usually found in the top left corner of a magazine.
• Left Third - This is the most noticeable part of the magazine where the title, advertisements and main features of the magazine are shown. This is very important as it ensures customers can notice the magazine more than its competitors. Also the top 5th corner is important for similar reasons, it is vital in supermarkets where magazines are displayed differently.
• Cover Lines - These are distributed around the main image without detracting the emphasis from the masthead. They can advertise other topics featured inside of magazine and are usually found on the left and right sides of the cover.
• Sell Lines - These are short, sharp descriptions of the title's main marketing point. The magazines motto. 
• Bar code - A standard code used by retailers to tell what the product is. 
• Dateline - Shows the month and year of publication within the print.
• Splash - This is the front cover of a magazine.
• Credit - This is presented on the magazine and tells the reader who wrote the article.
• Kicker - A short phrase found above the mast head, it is used as an introduction to the magazine, a punch line to get the reader interested in the article.
• Teller - This is a subtitle that tells you what the article is about.
• Screamers - A phrase on the front of a magazine that shouts at you, this can be determined by the colour, font and whether the writing is bold/underlined etc. 
• Skyline - The skyline is the section of the magazine above the mast head; here is where what the magazine is about (celeb gossip ... food ... exercise) is usually featured.
• Flash - This is like an advert which appears to be raised above everything else on the page, it often advertises free products and may be in the shape of a star (for example, Win a FREE holiday!).
• Graphology - It flashes at you.
• Anchorage - Giving the picture meaning, for example if there was a picture of Barack Obama, the anchorage would be text saying something like 'Obama's big speech'.
• Colour Scheme - This if generally three or four colours that are used on the front cover; for example the background may be purple, some text red, some green. Any boxes or Flashes on the page would stick to these colours.
• Vocabulary - The words used.
• Images - Self-explanatory; photographs, animated pictures (clipart).

Pricing and Publishing (College Magazine)

Relating back to my LIIAR Analysis of the Brief my research has shown that the students attending Wyke College will be lacking in terms of finance, therefore I have chosen to make my magazine free. This is appropriate as my magazine has not been created for personal finance benefits also it means the magazine appeals to more students who previously couldn’t afford to buy other competitors magazines and now can buy this magazine.  I have decided the magazine will be published every half term/ holiday in the year, this is appropriate as when the students return to college it informs them of events coming up. The student body at Wyke will cast votes with the students at Wyke and inform the results to magazine publishers; what the students want the magazine to feature thus appealing to more students.

LIIAR Analysis of the Brief (College Magazine)

Language
The front page of my collage magazine will contain a masthead, this must be a dominant icon so it is easily recognisable to the target audience (students). A main background image, in my case I think I will use either a extreme long shot of a building at wyke or a medium close up of a student. The colour scheme used has to be bold and appealing as i want the final appearance to be interesting and full of ideas. For my collage magazine i am considering using the colours orange, yellow and blue. I haven't particularly taken any inspiration from another magazine however u want my cover to stand out from all other competitors on the shelves in shops. The vibrant colour scheme will portray a young stylish feel for the magazine which will appeal to my target market, young students at collage. Inter-textually could be used to add a personal connection with the reader, possibly interjecting humour but this will rely on mutual cultural knowledge and understanding. As my target audience is students i am going to use cover lines to distribute different quotes from famous actors (Robert Patterson) and quotes from popular TV programmes (Skins) so more young students buy the magazine, it appeals to them.
Institution
The institute I am going to use to produce the magazine is Wyke. This would make the research into to my chosen college much easier, also as Wyke is familiar to me therefore I can use the Wyke campus to take my photographs of the buildings, facilities and the students.
Ideology
For my collage magazine I have decided to focus the main article on Wyke parties and the fun atmosphere the collage creates as well as the excellent grades it achieves. On my splash I will convey these articles by using screamers to shout out at the audience and refer them to pages in the magazine explaining the different activities you can take part in. The moral that I am wishing to discuss is that Wyke isn't all about hard-core revision and the student body create different activities and nights out for the students to unwind, have fun and socialise with their class mates. This will influence teenagers which have a bad attitude towards further education to continue their studies at Wyke as in the process of attaining grades for the future they will also create memories of their days at Wyke College.
Audience
Obviously my target audience is students aged between 16-18 studying at collages in the UK. More specifically there will be further information for students studying at Wyke, telling them upcoming events (the fresher’s party). After compelling research I discovered the majority of students studying at colleges in the UK are either unemployed or have part time work, meaning finance will be limited. Also as EMA has recently been cut by the government for the majority of students their finance is further restricted- therefore I will be making my magazine free.
Representation
The main article may portray the students as party animals who don't concentrate on their studies however in the magazine I will also add some facts and figures about Wyke’s A level results from previous years and explain how students should be entitled to a break. My aim for my magazine is too attract as many students as possible therefore I must try and make the splash appeal to lots of different personalities of students. I will offer advice in my magazine about how to organise students timetables so they have time for revision and too socialise.

College Choice for Preliminary Task (College magazine)

For my preliminary task i am going to feature Wyke collage, I have chosen Wyke as the new facilities featured as a background image for my magazine cover would present the overall appearance as modern and fresh. Also Wyke has a lot of extra activities going on which i could feature as a cover lines down the left third of my splash. I could also use a screamer to present the high grades Wyke has achieved in the past few years as a way of attracting the readers attention and gaining interest in the magazine.

Digital Mock Up of my College Magazine (College magazine)

                              Plan 1                                                                          Plan 2

Conventions of a Contents Page (Music and College magazine)

Page title - This tells the reader what page they are on in the magazine and also the date of the issue.
Quotes - These are original pieces of text taken from various sources eg, newspapers, books, word of mouth. Certain phrases are used as quotes on a contents page to grab the readers attention.
Features Section - These are the characteristics of the magazine, it tells the reader about the various articles that can be found inside the magazine.
Continuous colour scheme - When the same colours/patterns are used throughout the magazine as a form of decorating it to make to seem more eye catching and interesting to the reader.
Images of artists and performers - Images are used on a contents page to let the reader become interested as the magazine may only have shots of a celebrity that no other magazine could get. Its all about drawing the reader in into buying the magazine.
Page numbers - I would expect to find these at the bottom of the page to let the reader know what page they are reading. They can also be used to give quick and easy references to the location of articles.
Advertisements - These are featured on the contents page to show different institutions and get the reader interested.


Other conventions are used on a magazine cover such as Large clear font and various language techniques, these again are used too help the reader recognise features in the magazine and promote clear messages throughout.

LIIAR Analysis of 2 Magazine Covers and 1 Contents page (College magazine)

My first impression of this magazine cover is that is it quite plain and doesn't tell you much about what the collage offer’s to its students. The background image does present the collage as being a refined and sophisticated working environment as the buildings look quite superior. The masthead follows the colour scheme of green and white, which presents the audience with the feeling of maturity and a fresh clean environment. This magazine cover would not stand out on a shelf with its competitors as it doesn't have anything going for it. There is no use of cover lines presented on the splash and the writing at the bottom of the page is hard to read and too small to stand out to the audience. I could contrast this and say that this plain magazine cover conveys the idea that the collage only concentrates on education purposes and that it doesn't need a lot of bold text and pictures to present its message.

 “College Class of 2009”

Language
The masthead "college" is very simple and not very imaginative or appealing to its target. Behind the anchorage is a background image of the college building to attract students to study at this grand educational building. The green strip at the left side of the splash can be used as a logo to represent all magazines that have been created by the same publisher. There is no bar code on the magazine suggesting there is no price. The small cover lines in white at the bottom are hard to read and do not stand out, the clear colour scheme used is green and beige giving it a simple feel appealing to students who are interested in purely educational information only.
Institution
I think the publisher of the magazine is the college class of 2009, there is no clear identities of the publisher however the cover lines tell me the magazine was created inform students of college news therefore the publisher must have a clear understanding of recent events and college life- telling me they are most probably students.
Ideology
The "college class of 2009" magazine is very plain and doesn't feature any screamers, forms of a flash or kickers. The magazine was created to look very basic, only conveying a clear message that it was created for educational purposes. The cover lines don’t actually indicate to any educational articles throughout magazine, it only talks about college news and doesn’t feature any upcoming events like parties or subject trips ect.
Audience
The audience for the college magazine is clearly students for that specific college, I can infer this as the masthead is "...class of 2009" the magazine title clearly appeals to that certain class of students and informs them about their college news which would not be relevant to any other students.
Representation
 I could argue both points of view on whether the magazine promotes the students in a positive or negative view. I could say that the students are viewed negatively as the magazine is very boring and simple therefore it represents the students as not outgoing and tedious. However as I stated before the audience could infer that in fact the simplicity of the splash makes the magazine look classy and focused on educational purposes only, creating an image that the students are focused and work hard. The magazine also looks quite sophisticated representing the students who attend as quite wealthy and upper class.

The “Ridgewater” collage is a well-established and mature magazine which gives the audience the idea that the collage is very advanced and offers opportunities to its students. This is presented though the image of a globe presented on the cover. I would say the colour scheme is white and red to give the audience the feel of a relaxed and comfortable environment, the colour blue featured for the screamers on the page as a way of catching the reader’s attention. A negative of the magazine is that the layout is quite compact and can make the reader feel confused from the different texts shouting out at you although I could imply it as a positive that there is a lot going on at the college. The layout is correct in the sense that the cover lines are presented down the left third of the splash which is where is would expect to see the text. The masthead on the magazine is quite effective; the font makes the collage seem sophisticated however the text colour does merge slightly with the background. The main image on the magazine cover is of a young student presumably sat in a study area.  The ethnicity of the student is Chinese which implies the collage is available for all students of all races. Also the image of the globe at the bottom of the splash ties in with this idea. An improvement for the magazine could be to add teasers to what is coming up in the future this would influence the audience into buying the magazine as it would appeal to them more.

“Ridgewater College”

Language
The masthead on this magazine cover is more noticeable and gives the college a sense of purity due to the chosen theme colour white. This colour is also presented for the cover lines; it does make the text stand out on the background image. The main image is of a young female student smiling at college. The shot of the student is medium close and has a positive representation of the college. The ethnicity of the student and the picture of a globe at the bottom right of the splash indicate the college is mixed race and available to all types of people. There is no clear colour scheme used although it does give the feeling that the college is relaxed.
Institution
The publisher of the magazine is "Willmar and Hutchinson" which is presented on the teller on the splash. I am guessing these publishers are in fact students at Ridgewater College itself. One of the headings reads "a community" showing that the students work together to create ideas to be featured on the overall magazine.
Ideology
The college magazine promotes the cultural mix of students around the world by advertising in the magazine for students socialise and meet new people with those from different countries. "How 2 students came from different sides of the world- and came to the same great conclusion about Ridgewater education" This cover line obviously promotes the relationship between people with different cultures. The morale is that “Ridgewater College” promotes to mix of students from different backgrounds and religion. This idea of mixing is further influenced by the image of the globe positioned at the bottom right of the page.
Audience
The audience of the "Ridgewater College" is obviously students. This is shown through the reappearing phrase "Students" indicating who the audience is. Also the background image is of a student studying at college immediately shower the viewer who the magazine is indicated at.
Representation 
The magazine presents the college is a very positive way; it promotes college education and targets the audience in a way that makes students interested in learning. It also promotes the mix of different cultures and ethnicity which shows the students are eager to learn in a multicultural society.

There is a page title featured in this magazine "contents" however there is no indication of the date it was issued. There is a continuous colour scheme presented; red and blue showing that the magazine is aimed at both genders. This is appropraite as the magazine will appeal to a larger audience making it more popular. At the bottom of the page there is an advertisement: "Enter the chance to win 2 tickets to the gig of your choice Page 55" Notice the prize of the competition is a "gig" which tells me the target audience is students as it is often looked as an activity a lot of the younger generation do. Down the centre of the page there is a features selection to show the viewer various articles in the magazine, it is all done to draw the reader in and to make them want to read more. The position of these features on the page is very useful as it is where the reader would expect to find them. "South downs college" contents page is very educational and the articles promoted are all about the college facilities not social activities students can take part in. To improve this page images and quotes of recent famous bands would make the magazine much more interesting to its target audience. The font of the text is very bold and clear which succeeds in promoting clear messages to the audience.