planning for College magazine cover.

Choosing a name

One of the main conventions in any magazine is a mast head and in this case it is the name of the magazine. As my magazine cover is aimed at students of a college, I have decided that a name that gives some inspiration and determination to it, has a more influential appeal to it that may attract the audience I am aiming for.I also came up with a slogan to match each name I thought of as I wish to use a slogan on my front cover. This is also one of the many things a magazine includes.

Mast Head:
Right, Yours, Wise, Real
Sell Line:
Doing it your way,Reaching out to you, Keeping it your way, Its about you.
Date line:
between the 6th september and the 29th September. So the magazine is monthly
Image: Individual,group,teacher.
Image:
Individual, Group, Teacher or the building
Cover Lines:
The new building, Freshers party, NUS cards,UCAS.

                                                                  Names and slogans:
Real - Keeping it your way.                                                                            Wise - Its about you

Right - Doing it your way.                                                                 Yours - Reaching out to you


                                      

I did a draft of what a cover of a magazine may look like, to show where I may choose to place the mast head and slogan.

I short listed 2  names for a magazine and experimented with the writing.

Real

I think that this name would be quite good for a college magazine as it I feel it gives a message to the students. College life can be hard to adjust to, especially with the fact that this is the start of a life for some people, this is were the Real comes in. In gives the message that this isn't time to be wasted, this is real !! College is an important time of some peoples life. I choose  to use this style of writing so that even though it is an important message just from the connotations it gives out, its a bit more laid back and makes it a bit more less worrying. I think this would work much more than something bold and strong. It lets the students have fun with it.

Yours
This sort of gives the same idea as the name 'Real', it is a statement in its own and works quit

e well. It suggests that your future is in your own hands and that is what wyke is all about. It uses the idea of ideology as it suggest that everyone is free to do what they want , its about individuality and doing what you want to do. I think this would work when targeting My audience. It also addresses the audience, by automatically telling them , it is theirs and so this may persuade them to get it. The writing I have chosen gives a big,bold statement and this is the effect I am after.

Sketches
After a lot of thought, I have decided to name my magazine 'Yours' it is simple but yet effective and gives out the right sort of message to all students.

After choosing the name for my magazine, I decided to draw out a few sketches to plan out what I may want the magazine to look like. This was an easy stage of planning as I could go for any look I wanted but I knew I had to make sure it was acceptable and appropriate for a college student. I had to think about what photographs I wanted to include and how I could make these have a good representation. I experimented in my sketches by having female and male individuals on the cover as well as pairs. In my sketches I thought about the colours of the font I would use and the layout of the actual front cover.I thought about doing sketches that I knew I was able to work with for my final piece.
I knew from the start that my featured model would have to be a student that attend Wyke as if it wasn't, it wouldn't work. I decided that I would feature one person on my cover as a representative of all students that attend Wyke, so when it came to the photos I knew I had to make sure I would use the right kind of student that will give a good impression. This shows I have thought about the representation that will be shown on the front of my college magazine.

Photos

Before I took the photos for my magazine I knew that I wanted to take them somewhere based in the actual college as this would look much better and would make it clear to see that the magazine is for Wyke. I thought about having them inside but there wasn't any where that I thought was quite suitable. The cafeteria seemed like a good place but it was hard to get a model who felt comfortable with the idea of having their photo taken in front of others. There also was plain white walls which could look effective but seemed to simple for what I was looking for. So I resulted in the outdoors. As many students will know Wyke has just been rebuilt and so it has a brand new garden area for the students. This was a perfect place for pictures to be taken as not only does it show of the new college but it also looks nice and is appropriate place to take photos

   I then found someone who was comfortable with getting their photo taken and who seemed like a perfectly good student to feature on the front of a college magazine. I chose to have 'Scarlett' as my model as she is confident, appropriate and best of all a student at Wyke. Taking the actual photos was an easy job as she had a natural flare in front of the camera and so didn't mind experimenting with different shots. I varied the shots by having some against a brick wall, a white wall and the new wyke garden. The photos turned out well and I think I got some good shots. When I took the photos I was aware that I had to make sure they were mid shot. I didn't take my pictures mid shot but I knew that I could later edit them if I decided to use them. All my photos were taken around Wyke college as this is the perfect place to have them. All my finished photos offer something different to them which gave me a wider range of choice for my finished product.



This is a plain photo that didn't require much, but I think it still looks effective.
If I decide to use this photo on my magazine cover I will edit it so that it becomes a mid shot.

    





I like this photo as the background is the new improvements to the college. If I used this in my
final piece I would make the model appear on the right  so that when I place the cover
lines on the photograph, it wouldn't cover Scarlett's face. I also again would crop so that it is mid shot.





I like this photo as I think the brick wall works really well. This is one that I may consider for the final piece
but I am still making a decision. I would crop this photo also to make it a mid shot.

Again this works well against the brick wall background but It wouldnt work well for the front cover
on a magazine, as the text could appear over the face of the model which doesnt look that professional. Again would need cropping to a mid shot.



I really like this photo as it shos a lot of the new area Wyke now has to offer. I think it would work quite well
once edited. This is one I am considering.



This photo was taken in mid shot against a white wall. It wouldnt work that well for a magazine main
image as the writing would over lap the moels face. However I like the fact this photo uses the idea of ideology as the model has chosen to wear a necklace that embraces religion. This shows the college is open to any student that have any particular believes and values.

I like this phtot and I also considered this for my finsished product however I do think that because the model has chosen to stand in this particular position, its like she is stressing which gives a bad representation of the college.

This photo would work but I think the model is performing too much in the photo and it doesnt look
natural and real.

                      What I will Include:

• Mast Head   ( Yours)
• Sell Line (Reaching out to you)
• Cover lines (The new improved wyke)
• I choose to use this as a cover line as this is particularly new thing that is very current now and so I thought this would be a good idea to do. I am also doing a cover line that mentions the NUS cards that are now available to purchase, as this is also a current situation for Wyke.
• Bar code ( will be placed some where at the bottom of the cover)
• Price (£0.50)
• Dateline (date the issue is available to purchase)
• Main image ( I will include one main image that will appear as my background as well.

The Image I have decided to use in my final piece is:

I am aware I have not taken this photo as a mid shot therefore I have manipulated it using photo shop.

I trimmed it down and made the model appear more to the right as well as having only the top half of her showing. I rotated the background so that it doesnt appear central leaving the model to appear different. I tried to make it look like I have placed her on a background.

This is the background photo I will use for my front cover. It is now a mid shot and has plenty of room for text, it will not over lap the model, making it look more professional.

Theme/Colours:

My main colour theme will be white and red.

My mast head will be in white as it is clear to see from the background.

Most of the text will be in Red and White as these colours are bold and appear on my background.

Layout of my front cover

This is a layout of what my Final front cover will look like. I have taken into account that I may decide to change my ideas any time and so have considered it may not look like this. I have choosen to have my mast head across the top of my page as it easily states the name of the magazine. In my research I found that some college magazines had their mast head across the top also, this shows I have considered the conventions of the magazine. I will include one picture as my background picture and so have placed my cover lines in places that wont over lap the image in a way that hides it. On my layout the cover lines look quite, this is sort of the look I am going for but hope that in my final result it looks better and actually works.

Working from my first layout I produced this:

This is my first completed front cover which was done as a mock up of the layout I did. However I have decided to change the position of some of the text as I feel it has more of an impact if it wasnt all central. It would make it look less simple and more unique. Also I think that the two cover lines that are placed on the right side of the cover make it look a bit cluttered and one of them over laps the model. This makes it look un professional and so because of this I have decided to change these minor things and redo some of the cover lines. I have changed the writing style and changed the position of some of cover lines as well as deleting some of the coverlines. My first draft looks a bit cluttered and it seems as if I have just placed random text in places that dont work. Because of this, I am glad I changed my first version.

Here is a print screen of me moving and experimenting with the layout of the text. This was done on photo shop.