Wednesday 20 October 2010

Evaluation
I was asked to design and create a college magazine for Wyke College and a mock up of a contents page for the magazine which i therefore went on to design.
Our magazine had to have a photograph of a student that was a medium close up shot, the main connotation of this magazine is to inform former students of all gender, social groups and between the age of 16-19 at Wyke College, such as events and general information.
I decided to name my magazine 'Wyke & You' the 'You' directly talks to the audience drawing them in.
I decided to keep the Wyke College colour house style to allow consistency and allow the magazine to be recognisable for the students.
As the photograph of the student is the main theme for my magazine I wanted her to stand out, I did this by blurring the background and turning it to a black and white contrast i then changed the contrast to brighten the student. I also changed the colour of the folder that the student is holding because this is a connotation for learning this folder represents that so by changing to colour to match the Masthead colour palette created consistency and relevance. I learnt from my research that it is important for the main image to connotate positivity, I did this by allowing my student to smile and look happy this creates a sense that by reading this magazine you'll be as happy as this student.
By rotating the 'You' in my masthead it allowed the masthead to be interesting, the different angles created texture and a playful look. I kept all my text font the same to allow consistency, the cover lines are all in a white colour palette as this stood out from the main image. White is also a positive connotation.
A date and issue number was also added, these are vital to allow identification of the magazine, in my research I found that all dates and issue numbers are placed at the top of the magazine near the masthead.
I also placed a barcode on my magazine, this is also used for identification, when researching the barcode position differed either being on the right hand side of the magazine or left.
A website address of the magazine is added to let the reader know that they can find more information on this website address, information that may not of been put into the magazine.
I am really happy about my final design for my magazine, I think everything works well and everything I design was created for positive connotation. If I could re-design this magazine to improve it I would change the layout of the coverlines so that they don't interfere with the main image as much.


Contents page
A contents page is the next page after the front cover, it is used to inform the reader of each page in the magazine and was they consist of.
My final design is simple but informative and this is exactly what I wanted to achieve, by having a text heavy and busy contents page would take the main use of the contents page away.
I used two images of students working this creates a positive connotation of  hard working students. The main house colour for this contents page is white - a positive connotation. I then added a block colour rectangle to add more colour and to modernise it, I then changed the opacity of this colour block to simmer the colour down so that the background would not take away the importance of the text. As you can see I have used a consistent house style once again created a recognisable contents page.
My numbers of each page number are larger than the actual text, I decided to do this mostly to allow the page numbers to stand out but also because it looked better than a smaller sized font.
I also decided to write a message for the readers of the magazine to directly connect to the audience this is also essential for magazines to allow the readers to get in touch to ask questions and even to let the institution what they thought of the magazine and future cover stories to write about.
I am very happy with my final design for contents page, if i had to improve my contents page I would play around with the idea of creating a more image heavy design, this could create more of an interesting theme.


In what ways does your print produce use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real print products? I feel the print that I have created does use conventions of a real print product, I have used a consistent house style which all real print products use to allow the magazine to be identifiable to the consumer. My magazine consists of various cover lines and a medium close up shot that mostly all real print products would use.
Most magazines that I researched had a blank canvas background therefore I challenged the conventions of real print products by having what could be explained as a heavy background but I managed to get around this by blurring and changing to a black and white contrast.
I have also challenged the conventions of


How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? I feel that my main product and ancillary texts are effective together as the subjects of the text that i have included are related to student life, the cover line 'Revision Tips' relates to every student in the whole world every student does exams and revision tips is very useful for them.

What have you learned from you audience feedback?
I am happy with my audience feedback, it has informed me of good decisions i made to create this magazine also of elements that I can improve on, like laying out my front cover differently so that the cover lines do not interject with the main image. One comment was mentioned about my contents page and that I can improve it by adding more images in but this is what I did not want to do, I did think about the advantages of having more images but I felt that having many images would take away the main concept of a contents page, which is to inform the reader of page numbers.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?
When creating my college magazine and contents page I used media technologies such as a digital camera to allow the photograph to be sharper and better quality, I also use Photoshop, this allowed my actual process of creating the magazine easier and also I was able to create more detailed designs with different effects. I also used media technologies throughout the process of designing and creation process as well as the evaluation of the magazine by posting each part of the process onto a blog.

No comments:

Post a Comment