Preliminary Task - Research and Planning

Research into 2 college magazine front covers



This "college" magazine has used a college student as the main image in the middle of the page. She is dressed in a bold red t-shirt, smiling, with geenery behind her. As the student is smiling, a positive message is being sent out to the audience, implying that it is a good thing to be in college and that the students there are happy. The colour scheme of green and red sends out this positive message too, as these are bold, optimistic colours. The mast head across the top of the front cover is red and in bold, capitalised text. The image of the girl covers some of the writing however, showing her importance over the rest of the text, implying that the students there are the top priority. Another implication of the student being the most important aspect of the college is that the medium close-up of the student is clear, and the background is out of focus, which draws the audience's attention to the girl.

The subheadings around the edges of the front cover are in a smaller, but darker font. This doesn't detract from the image of the student, but the dark colours still stands out, making them more likely to be read. The titles of the included stories are all relevant to teenagers/students and would be stories that are highly likely to be of interest to this specific target audience. For example, "Smoking salvia?" This college magazine would be aimed at the students of the college, or students of nearby colleges, however I think the image, story titles and colours used shows that this would be more likely to be aimed at females rather than males. For example, "She's 15 & pregnant" would be a story that female teenagers would be more likely to read.

This "college lifestyle" magazine has taken a very different approach. Firstly the background is a plain grey/black colour, making the greeny-yellow and white text boldly stand out over the top. The main, medium close-up shot of a male student is in the centre of the front cover. The student is holding some text books which the audience can clearly see read 'Law, business and society." This shows that the student is intelligent, and we can also see that as he is smiling, he is enjoying being at college. Similiarly to the first front cover, the image has been placed slightly over the top of the mast head, again showing the importance of the student over other aspects of the college. This also puts the college in a positive light.
The subheadings around the edge of the front cover are in smaller, but bold writing, written in the white, and the same greeny-yellow colour as the mast head. This links the whole front cover together as the colour scheme is simillar throughout. This college magazine has been aimed at male college students. The titles of the stories included in the magazine would, stereotypically, be much more likely to appeal to males, for example "make money on campus" and "why we love blackberry." Also the use of a male on the front cover would attract males to buy the magazine as they would assume it would include information they would like to read. The darker colours used would also be less likely to appeal to girls.

Research into 2 college magazine contents pages

This is a very simple, basic but effective contents page. The three images at the top of the page all show different aspects of the college. The top left image shows the actualy building of the college. It shows the audience that it is a very big building a big amount of land around it. This implies that a vast number of students attend here as the building is as big as it is, which then implies that it must be a good college as so many people attend. The bottom left image shows a girl laying down on a pile of books. This shows the more relaxed side to college, but as she is laying on her books it also shows that studying is still a main priority in the student's life. The image on the right shows the sports side to the college. The image is of a girls team of some sort of sport. In the image they are all laughing and smiling, showing that they are all happy and enjoying their time at the college. This image shows that the college are keen in sports, which sends out very positive messages of the college as they are keeping their students fit and healthy. The image also shows that the college welcomes a wide variety of students from different ethnic backgrounds.

The background of the contents page is just plain white, which shows the importance of the text and the images as there is nothing to detract from these things on the page. The text is kept in plain black writing, making the contents of the magazine very easy to read and very accesible.



 This contents page is much more busy, with a lot more contents included. The colour scheme is still relatively simple, with a plain white background and plain blue and black text. The use of the plain white background shows the importance of the darker text and the darker image used. There is a greyscale shadow of a male in the background, listening to music and dancing. This shows that he is happy and enjoying himself, which implies that he is also having fun being at college. The page has been seperated into the different pieces of information on the different pages, making this easily accesible and easy to use.

The margin on the left hand side of the contents page also gives addional information for the reader of the magazine (most likely to be students) making the magazine very useful and practical for the students.

2x Drafts/mock up of college magazine

1st mock 

2nd mock

2x Drafts/mock up for contents page


1st mock

2nd mock