1. After doing research on professional student magazines; I used the arrangement of the magazine as a guide to my own. For instance, the main image being in the middle of the magazine and the mast head being at the top of the magazine. Also that the masthead should be the largest text on the page. While researching I found that the target audience would be teenagers aged 13-18, so this meant I had to monitor the language used as to not make it too boring, too difficult or patronising. The identifying characteristics of a student magazine would be that the layout of inside pages and sometimes the contents page holds most of the space for information/text and only a few pictures. You would expect to see images of teenagers, classrooms and books/study work. I made sure I used appropriate images when creating my front page and contents page as to not confuse the audience of the genre of the magazine.
2. Ideologies in student magazine spread to around gender, class of persona, age and ethnicity, There are the ideas of females working better in all-female schools/sixth forms and boys working better in mixed gender schools/sixth forms. There’s also the idea of people working better around there own ethnic community, it being easier to learn the younger you are and people in a higher class have a better chance to learn well compared to those of a middle or lower class. Taking these ideologies into consideration I tried to make sure my front page and contents page showed people from all different communities. I tried to include all different activities also, such as the two boys of different skin colours both playing guitars together.
3. Student magazines are mainly sold in college or student events such as a summer fete or winter fete. They are displayed on stalls at student events and displayed in the college store or handed out during form lessons to the students. The sub-genre of the magazine effects where the magazine might be purchased as it would not make sense for a student magazine to be sold at a local shop or supermarket as it is irrelevant for the majority of shoppers in those sorts of shops. Sales would be at a minimal compared to if it was sold at a student fete etc. They are sold at student fates on in college as it relates to the students as it is about them, so sales are most likely to be maximised at these places.
4. Majority of my design decisions and representations were based on my research. I found out that student magazines usually use bright colours throughout the magazine as a way to attract the young audience as bright colours are more often associated with youth. Representations and expected stereotypes of a student magazine include the presentation of books and images of students working and taking part in extra curriculum activities such as football/rugby/debate club etc.
5. I used the colours green and red as they are bright colours and also complementary colours which mean they draw u in and are easy on the eyes. The main image consisted of a student shaking hands which a teacher to show the relationship between teachers and students. It was placed in the middle of the magazine with two cover lines to the left and right on the image as to make sure the page doesn’t look cluttered. However, there are 3 images in a Polaroid type frame with two to the right of the magazine and one in the middle of the main image which after discussing with my class I realised was poorly placed. It would have been better if they were all in one line as how it is now makes it look as if the images aren’t supposed to be on the cover. A strong point of this cover however is the masthead which consists of the colours green and red. It is placed at the top of the magazine and is the largest text on the page making it clear to read and understand. The magazine logo slightly overlaps it with the date line above the masthead and the slogan underneath. The logo adds a ‘fun’ feeling to the magazine due to the smiles on the ‘smiley’ emoticon pictures and the 824 in the middle of the two emoticons.
6. The programs used for the creation of my student magazine front page and contents page were Adobe Photoshop CS3 and InDesign CS3. Photoshop allowed me to put the whole front page together. It provided the tools to cut parts out of an image such as a person, to write the text for my mast-head and cover lines and position them according to how I want them. It also allowed me to put in any extra images I wanted to with no complications. Photoshop CS3 also allowed me to add effects to the text and images on my front page and contents page, and allowed me to create a background for my contents page, which made it easier to work on InDesign as I only had to deal with the boarders, columns, rows and text in InDesign. However it didn’t give me much direction as to where I should place my text, unlike InDesign. As said earlier, InDesign allowed me to create my columns and rows to arrange my contents page correctly.
7. I’m yet to explore how to position effectively on my front cover which I plan to do for my music magazine. When first designing my magazine it kept on looking like a poster until I developed it correctly which is something I learnt throughout this task. I developed my experience with the use of Photoshop and also InDesign which I had never used before this task. I also need to develop my knowledge of the features needed for a contents page and better layouts as to make my magazine pages seem less cluttered. I did learn and develop how to use tables and position and create mastheads effectively.