My magazine cover and contents page both challenge and use the stereotypical features of a magazine cover and contents. The magazine cover has the usual features such as masthead and call outs, as well as a running head. However it also uses less recognizable features such as drop shadow on the title which is less noticeable. It also uses serif font throughout the pieces, which is typical for an upmarket magazine, and the use of bold and italics throughout on certain more interesting aspects of the pieces. The CVI also bleeds off the page, which is another less recognizable feature. The contents also uses similar features, bold, italics and callouts for the pictures. It also includes flush left/left justify text which is typical of a contents page
Who would be the target audience for your media product ?
The obvious target audience for my magazine would be students. On a psychographic note, i would expect primarily aspirers and achievers to read the magazine, due to college being about cementing the grades in order for you to achieve in life. I would assume that majority of readers would be placed at grade E on the Jicnar Scale, due to college not enabling you to have a full time or high paying job. In relevence to the life stage catagories, the 12-18 and decision pending catagories would fit.
How did you attract/address your audience ?
I used numerous features to help attract my target audience, with lots of connotations and meanings. On the front cover, i attempted to use captions and callouts that my primary target audience would find interesting. An example of this is the 'How to pass your driving test'. When at college, usually this is when a student would begin to learn to drive, and by addressing matters that concern students, it allows the audience to relate to the magazine and persuades them to buy the magazine. The posture of the CVI with his hand on his head and his eyes looking away from the camera connote intelligence, thoughtfulness and coolness, which is likely to appeal to the audience.
There are also only 3 colours used, black, white and a light blue. As the magazine is targetted at both genders, not just one, we needed to find colours that don't favour one gender over another, and that both genders would find appealing. The colour black connotes seriousness, and boldness, where as the white and blue connote fun, and imply that, combined with the black, the magazine will be packed with relavent things, but will also be a light read. In the magazine we also used bold and italics on the text that we found to be most interesting to the reader.
What've you learnt about other technologies from the process of constructing this product ?
When making this media piece, i learnt about a number of different technologies, including digital SLR cameras, Photoshop and Indesign. When using the cameras, I learnt to turn the flash off, in order make the photo of a better quality. I also learnt terms such as mid close up, which is the type of photo we were required to take. I learnt how to handle and keep the camera safe also. Photoshop proved particularly interesting, as it used skills that were unknown to me. I learnt how to get rid of spots, and blemishes, and how to use the magnetic lasso tool to enable me to crop photos delicately and then feather the image to make it look more professional. Indesign was also a new experience, as it taught me the importance of laying out a contents page, rather than just put things where nessicary. I learnt how to use swatches, and gradients, and how to lay out my contents page into a 3 4 or 5 collumn piece. Also i would not have been able to perform text wrap without using Indesign before hand, as i think this is a valuable feature into my piece.
Keeping track of my work via Blogger has enabled me to plan my piece much more carefully, and allowed me to identify problems and shown me which idea's work, and which idea's don't. An example of this were my fonts, or the name of my magazine. If not for the planning on blogger, i would have likely rushed into making decisions and my overall product would have been worse.
