The document summarizes the design process for a college magazine targeted at 16-19 year old students. Key points include: - The cover features a relaxed student to convey comfort. Font and layout aim to feel modern rather than traditional. - The contents page continues themes of informality and maturity. Pictures show social spaces and language is straightforward. - Student feedback was positive about the bold colors, readable fonts, and messages of understanding their interests. - Areas for improvement include adding more cover text, changing the cover photo angle, and increasing font sizes for sections on the contents page. Better planning of photo locations could also aid the editing process.

1. College Magazine
Evaluation

2. How Does My Magazine Represent Particular
Social Groups? – The Cover
The student pictured, is relaxed and wearing her own clothing, this
connotes that she is comfortable in her environment and is not
being forced into her task. Having questioned members of my target
audience as part of my research, they made it clear to me that they
do not want to consume any media that feels to manufactured or
“tries to hard” to capture their attention.
Throughout each stage of the production process my
decisions have been based upon the responses of my
target audience. I aimed to represent the social group of
students. In particular, 16-19 year olds.
Using Photoshop, I was able to removing an imposing piece of
wood from behind student. This created a much lighter and
therefore more positive feel for the magazine. It also makes the
environment the student as working in a more spacious one.
Having a wider space, may also be associated with freedom.
Freedom is something that many students would like to have.
By providing this imagery, I am demonstrating how my
magazine aims to listen and understand students, rather than
belittle them.
The font (with the exception of the masthead) is entirely
sans serif. This is because after speaking to students, I was
told that they wanted a more modern magazine that they
would want to read, rather that a traditional style that
they would have to read. Traditionally, most academic or
older texts (that students have to read) are written with a
serif font style. Therefore, by choosing a sans serif font,
there is a feel of modernization associated with the
magazine as well as a more informal identity.
Not all teenaged students feel included when the focus is
on academic areas. Others may choose to identify as more
creative and expressive individuals. I felt this could be
better integrated into the magazine by reflecting the views
of those students in a way that would be represent them. I
decided that the masthead was the best place to capture
this creativity. Like the artwork that would be produced by
creative students, the masthead needed to be easily
identifiable as part of a magazine and provide further
implicit meaning. The title font looks as though it as been
stenciled and sprayed with paint as opposed to typed. This
is a representation of the artistic and creative personalities
that help to make up a wide range of the 16-19
demographic.

3. How Does My Magazine Represent Particular
Social Groups? – The Contents Page
The pictures used show various places that students can interact
with other individuals or purchase various goods and items for
themselves. Many 16 – 19 year olds feel alienated by a magazine
that is too academically minded. By not including pictures of
classrooms and leading with very social and “adult” environments, I
am continuing to portray an informal feeling surrounding the
magazine. This also should help to build confidence within the
target audience is they will be listened to and treated with a great
deal of maturity as a consumer.
The contents page, similar to the cover, contains some
very “straight-talking” language. Although students
wanted an informal magazine, I felt using puns in the
contents titles may appear to childish to an audience of
“young adults”. Instead, the language is to the point and
no adaptions or explanations that may “insult the
intelligence” of the target audience.
Once again, using Photoshop, I was able to remove a chip-box
from this table. The result is that the table looks cleaner and is
ready for a new student to eat at. The picture is also taken from
a first person perspective, to give the impression that the reader
of the magazine is sitting at the table.
The colour scheme, font and folio positioning is consistent,
which provides a more professional feel. Again, providing the
young adults with a product that looks a high quality means that
they to will begin to respect the magazine as a significant brand.
The house style also helps to establish the brand as a serious
publication for young adults, as children’s publications are more
likely to have humorous fonts in a random display of colours and
styles in order to retain the short attention span of the younger
audience.
The overall content and the order that they appear in
was established as a result of my research
questionnaire. “Student Jobs” and “Gigs” were the
two most common requests to appear in the
magazine by the target audience. Therefore, these
have appeared first in the list of contents. Items that
did not rank so highly, or that one or two students
said they didn’t want appear further towards the back
of the magazine.
An increasing number of 16-19 year olds, are most
likely to consume and interact with media online
using various pieces of technology. They may choose
to do similar with this magazine. Therefore I have
included web and social media addresses in order to
extend the reach of the magazine and increase the
number of readers.

4. What Aspects of My Work Am I Pleased With?
After sharing my finished front cover and
contents page with members of my target
audience, I was presented with a variety
of positive feedback.
Remarks related to my colour scheme were
amongst the most positive from my target
audience. The use of red, white and blue
made the magazine really bold and able to
stand out from a distance. I too, felt as
though this was a good choice of colour as it
made the magazine appear fresh and vibrant
whilst avoiding colours that members of the
target audience disliked, when I carried out
my questionnaire.
The Mastheads on each of the pages also
received good feedback. My target audience felt
that the bold and contrasting red and white
colours help to make it more identifiable. This
will help the brand and the magazine itself when
it comes to being noticed over other magazines
on the market. The font style was even
considered “creative” in one review. This shows
that I was successfully able to convey the right
messages to the audience as this was exactly
why I had chosen the font style I have.
The font styles I have used are clear to
read and easy for the audience to
understand. No member of my peers
stated that they felt belittled or
patronized in any way. This is a positive
as any negative response from the
language used could impact upon how
the audience interact with the product.
For example, if a member of the
audience feels insulted or offended by
any content in the magazine, then the
perceptions on my entire target
audience could be affected. As any
feedback associated with the text or
language already in the magazine was
positive, I feel confident that this will
add to the positive and mature
connotations a aimed to create.
Personally, I am most pleased with my cover masthead, as I feel that in conveys all the messages I set out to
achieve, in terms of professionalism and modernization. I was able to adhere to further codes and
conventions of a magazine, by including a strapline, issue number, date and price. All of which are what I
feel to be at an appropriate size and placement upon the page.

5. What Aspects of My Work Could be Improved?
It is clear from the response of my peers, that
there is a lot of room for improvement upon
various elements of both the cover and contents
page. Most of the improvements suggested for
my cover page, were graphical rather than any
changes to the text. Only one person suggested
that more text would be beneficial for the cover.
The justification for this, was that more cover
lines may encourage more students to by the
magazine if they where unsure about doing so
already. I agree with this and would include at
least one or two more topics within the cover
lines of the magazine.
The image on the cover is an aspect of the
work that also received some negative
feedback. Some people felt that direct-
address from the student in the picture
would help to create a better connection
between the magazine and the audience.
This connection is something I feel would
benefit the magazine, especially if I want
them to feel both comfortable and believe
that the magazine puts its audience first
and understands their wants and needs.
A resounding criticism came from the font sizes
and the fine-alignment of the text on the
contents page. In particular, it was
recommended that the “Regulars” and
“features” text could be made bigger and
bolder to make them more recognizable upon
the page. This is something that could be easily
implemented if I were to redo the task and
could be done without a vast impact upon the
formatting for the rest of the page. This means
that the would still be room for the range of
different content to cater for the needs of the
different audiences, but also make said
information more accessible for them. Fixing
the misaligned text, would also help maintain
the mature and professional image that my
magazine is aiming to achieve.
Personally, I believe that the picture on the cover could have been edited better to a much
better standard. However the location the picture was taken, later added to such editing
difficulties. Therefore, the magazine could be improved if the picture was taken in a better
location. For example, making sure the blue wall was the entire background as opposed to
any imposing structures such as the wood block that had to be edited out of this picture.

6. Thank You