1. Amy’s Feedback: Colour schemes
The reason why we as group had to consider a colour scheme was because
within the brief the client SSFC asked use to produce an effective colour
scheme as we would be making a student magazine on their behalf. So in order
to establish which theme would be best for their magazine we as a group had
to do initial research into the background of the client and of an already
established student magazine to establish what they the client wanted and
what the student magazine themes are like on the market now in order
incorporate an effective and professional theme within our magazine.
When asking our target audience within the questionnaire we complied we
found out what colour scheme they liked through a variety of choices such as
whether they wanted a vibrant colour scheme or not. We were not able to get
the feedback from our focus group on this topic because it wasn’t detailed or
effective as we weren’t visually or verbally able to communicate our concept
to our focus group so when making our questionnaire we had to make sure we
were more clear when presenting our ideas to our target audience.
What we found out from our questionnaire was that a few students thought
that a vibrant colour scheme would look attractive and bright whereas some
student didn’t as they thought it would be tacky. So in the end we as a group
decided that we will choose two bold colours as the main theme for our
articles in the magazine to create continuity and house style so that our
magazine will look professional and attractive. We decided that we would
continue the college colour scheme of the colour green within the magazine
title inbox to both establish this as the Solihull Sixth Form College magazine for
its students whilst also the colour green has a deeper meaning as it will
establish this a Christmas magazine as we would be making a Christmas edition
of the student magazine. We chose this as our theme for the front cover and
magazine issue to be a Christmas theme as we found out when we asked our
target audience a large amount of people said they would be attracted to it
because Christmas is coming. Therefore we wanted to make this edition a
Christmas one for our December monthly edition. However there was a
minority of students who thought that a Christmas theme would be irrelevant
to them as it wouldn’t cover the important issues regarding the students today
.So we as a group then had a decision to make on how we would combat this

2. issue so we decided that for our front cover theme we would try to balance
both these two themes of Christmas and students education news. The reason
for this was that these are important views within our students and we want to
fully target our target audience needs while also try to meet the clients
demands in producing an effective theme and magazine.
Parent zone Stories
Within the client brief the client clearly specified that they wanted stories to
both have an significant and lasting impact on the audience through various
stories covering the whole spectrum of college life. So we as group decided we
should try and incorporate the parent zone the college offers on the website in
more detail within the magazine because there is sparse information on the
website and it is important to include important information to the parents as
they play a huge role in the student’s life in achieving success. So we set out
complying a questionnaire highlighting serious topics which could be
potentially covered within the parent zone by getting the target audience i.e.
students to highlight which would best interest their parents. We found out
was that the main key stories that would interest the students’ parents would
be how to help them through the examination process which is coming up in
January and is an important topic that reflects the students opinions today as
they want to achieve the best grade through allowing the parents an active
role in helping them .Therefore we as a group decided this would be crucial to
include along with university open days because these are details are
important to the students today ,as they ranked this as a popular subject
due to fact this is an important part of their education journey .By including
this within our magazine we will be able to give reminders of important dates
regarding open days so they don’t miss them as this was what students said
they wanted included within the magazine. The meaning behind including this
within our magazine this is that it will help the students in the next process in
their life with their parent’s guidance regarding whether they decide to go to
higher education or apprenticeships. However one of the ideas which we
weren’t successful with was an idea I came up with which one of the articles
would feature a story about the principal which would highlight what changes
he has implemented within the college. This didn’t interest the audience
because it wasn’t important or relevant as they the students stated within the

3. questionnaire so we disregarded this so that we wouldn’t include pointless
stories which wouldn’t interest the audience and put off the audience of our
magazine. As the purpose of including stories was to intrigue the audience not
bore them. Another subject that will be discussed within the parent zone story
section was the parents evening dates because the students believed this
would be important information as the parents would want to know what is
happening with their children regarding there subjects by coming in and
talking to the subject teachers. This is a good point to cover for the parents and
bad for the students. Finally other important decisions we as a group made
was to include within our magazine was to show both UCAS and personal
statements in order to reiterate to the students in year 12 the procedures that
they have to follow when trying to apply for higher education whilst also
targeting year13 telling them what happens after sending their application via
UCAS and waiting for offers. By including this it will help and their parents and
themselves put their minds to rest as this is a serious and nerve racking
process dealing with UCAS and their personal statements.
We also asked our target audience whether they would like double page
articles or singular stories being covered within the magazine because we
wanted to know which layout the audience preferred so that we could
implement this through our different stories I,e parent zone and college news
etc. in the magazine. What we established is that some students preferred a
double page spread which gave enough space so all the information could be
covered with enough detail whereas some people liked singular stories .This
was because they wanted different stories to be covered and not be thrown by
large amount of information which wouldn’t interest them . So in end we as a
group decided we would categorise the important stories i.e parent zone in
double pages to allow full exposure of the subject which is what to our target
audience wanted .Whereas ,we also decided that we would try to balance
opinions being raised in our questionnaire by having singular articles featuring
important subjects such as entertainment stories covering a whole range of
subjects within the article.