College Magazine

Flat Plan

To begin the process of making a college magazine i made a flat plan of how the cover would be initially laid out on the page. The obvious place for the masthead was at the top of the page so it stands out and acts as the main aspect of the cover. The boxes are an indication of where each feature will be arranged, this would help when designing my magazine cover because the layout was fixed and planned. However it was only a rough indication and therefore some aspects changed in the process.

Magazine Cover

This is the college magazine i designed. SMAG is a student magazine and appeals to both male and females whom attend South Downs College. The cover lines are student friendly and relate to education and college life. I am pleased with the outcome due to the image being a medium close up as specified, the cover lines are also enticing and i find the layout is structured so that the text is identifiable. I feel students would be appealed to buy the magazine judging on the cover because of the stand out cover lines and attracting puff and plugs. However the cover could have some improvements surmised to it, the colours used aren't captivating, this was limited due to the image and the colours exposed. I would use a different image with a wider background used so that i was expressed with more colours and could use a wider range to set a thematic theme. I would have set the image out appropriately so it had a relation to the cover lines. 

Proposal For College Magazine

I will be producing a magazine cover and contents page which has the purpose made for those who attend college.

The cover will be designed specifically to appeal to college students, it will be aimed at both male and females who are around the ages of 16-18 years of age. This will be evident in the main image, colour scheme and cover lines i choose to publish. It will be available to buy only by the college students and therefore makes the audience specific to those who attend that college. It will accessible supermarkets, it will be purchased to those who are interested at college, it has a niche audience in mind.

The content of my magazine will also specify the target audience by featuring exam related articles,  this will show that the magazine can educate students about achieving and the most successful method to revise. It will also include elements that will appeal like competitions, games and gossip. I hope that it will have content which is helpful and educational but with additional articles and features that students will attract to and make them want to read the magazine.

The cover lines that i have proposed to be presented on my cover will be '10 ways to succeed' 'Revision Guide Inside' 'Student Low Down' 'Win a free bus pass' 'Last years results revealed!' these are some ideas that have relation to the content and will attract students when they read them. I will use the 10 ways to achieve as a puff and plug to entice the students into wanting to know more to benefit them. They are all short and snappy cover lines so that they get to the point, the audience will see the lines and decide whether they are interested in buying the magazine, this will be down to what is included within it as indicated by these cover lines.

The title i have opted to use is 'SMAG' this is an abbreviated way of saying 'student magazine'. I choose this because it has the potential to be iconic due to the uniqueness of the word. It is also short, one worded and therefore could be easily identified and recognised. It creates a fun aspect to the magazine and could attract students to buying it. Some of the other ideas for titles included, 'College Life' 'Student Low Down' 'Student Life' 'College Weekly' however i rejected them due to the basic and standard portrayal. I wanted something which was one worded, fun and interesting. Although initially i knew i would have the use of student or college embedded in my title, i was able to get this without evidently using the formal word.

The fonts i wish to use on my cover will be a variety of san serif and serif font styles, the contrast in fonts can make it unique and interesting. I will use fonts such as georgia, news stand. and gothic because these are stand out fonts and are easily identified when placed on a magazine. They will also attract the target audience because it is sophisticated yet not too formal, it can portray a sense of youth for the students. The masthead will be in a bold font which is also a font which is widely used yet portrayed in a unique way, this will make it iconic and stand out.

I  would publish my magazine during exam season, because this will relate to the revision and exam cover lines i plan to use. During the academic year i feel this will be the main period in which students will purchase a useful student magazine for advice, support or as a mechanism that will help them relax in the process of revising, therefore by publishing the magazine around this time will be helpful for the students and the content will be specified for this period.

The image i hope to achieve will be a student who is in the library with work surrounding them portraying revision and studying independently. The student would portray calmness and happy gestures to interpret how revision can be depicted in this way. It will be a medium close up, showing the student as the main focus with aspects of college work around them, also showing in the background the environment it is in. I will go about collecting this image by going into the college library and finding an appropriate candidate who is studying and adjusting the gestures to make it how i expect it to look.

The magazine i made would be published each term, so it would have one during the first term whereby new students are attending, the christmas period and then the periods leading up to the exams. Due to it being a student magazine i feel publishing it weekly or monthly is too frequent because students wouldn't necessarily be inclined to buy every issue. The content it includes will be the aspect in which will entice them.

Initial Ideas

In Design

Preliminary Task

As part of the preliminary task it consisted of practising using In design, learning the basics and coming to terms with the different tools it has that will help when it comes to making a professional looking magazine. I learnt how to create a basic magazine cover, with a simple masthead, cover line and main image. For the cover I put together i used an image of a well known model Kendall Jenner due to the popularity, young girls would appeal to this type of genre. The masthead i used was 'glam' i opted for a simple one word name for the magazine to capture attention, i changed the colour of the text to match the main image so that there was a clear colour scheme being used. From my first time using In design i started by inserting an image that i uploaded, once it was placed i then had to make it fit the entire page, this was done by selecting file insert image and object fitting to make the content fit the frame, this expanded the image so that it was able to act as the background to the magazine. I then discovered how to apply text to a blank document, and editing it the way i wanted it too look. I had to change the colour and size of the font. I also was able to space out the text and make it taller, i could manipulate it to present the way i wanted it too on the page. This was useful because previously i had never used this software but by having a go at the basic techniques i am now confident that i could use this further and create a magazine cover successfully using this. 

IPC Media

From researching IPC Media i found that as a media production they have associated with a very large range of genre of magazines, including womans health, sporting, music, gossip, lifestyle and TV this determines that they have a broad audience that their magazines are aimed at, depending on which genre the audience changes. However based on some titles of their magazines the most evident audience is older mature people as apposed to teenagers and young children. 

IPC might be an appropriate publisher for a new music magazine due to the success of their only music magazine currently available which is NME. They have experience from publishing NME and therefore have an idea of what audience to target at and how many sales it gains. The popularity of NME was high when it was first exposed, and the website they currently express it showing a huge demand for the music concept. IPC would be able to publish a new magazine having the right frame of mind as to what the best format would be. They are likely to publish rock/pop magazines due to the heavy demand there. Evidently these are genres in which are regularly listened to by a large audience, and therefore would have the biggest sales. People are increasingly interested in pop culture and news in relation to music. 

To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer?

In this essay it will be exploring into the context of teen magazines. It will be determined whether the magazines are to blame for the early sexualisation of the young readers. The magazine industry is expanding frequently which is creating a mass amount of audiences; this is allowing the girls to be influenced easily due to them being available to buy in various places without any restriction. They are a common occurrence and are sold globally attracting a substantial amount of young girls, which is depicting negativity in the media. In some circumstances some people may believe there is a potential breech of the code for this genre of magazine. However, they allow it to occur because the audiences are so young they fail to understand the level of sexualisation that is being expressed and therefore continue to buy it because its what they enjoy to read. There are also other forms of media which could be responsible due to the immense intensity of media, it is used everywhere in society and not freely avoided therefore it becomes accessible for almost anyone to be influenced by.

The connotations of what is displayed on these magazines are capturing the attention of many teenage girls. It is evident that there is a representation of young celebrities, each teen magazine has a main image of a well known teenage celebrity in which are seen to be inspirations to the audiences. The magazine companies purposely feature the celebs, which are fashion and beauty icons because they have awareness that this is a main aspect on the popularity of the magazine. Girls would be inclined to by a magazine if it includes an image and article of their favourite celebrity and therefore become repelled to mirror what is being presented. The girls they show all have beauty aspects to them, having a lot of make up on, this is a predicament in which could be the encouragement of girls as young as 11 wanting to wear make up due to the perfect image that is displayed. The girls will see the main image clearly before reading the magazine because it is so domineering on the cover, it could easily entice the girls because of the ideology that is apparent, that young girls should look this way and present beauty. Despite the age of the girls they become oblivious to the reality of their actual age, and follow what other older girls are doing because they are reactant to what the media informs. Some magazines include a free gift, the gifts they intentionally give out are things that most teenage girls would like and be inclined to buy. Often the free element is something in relation to make up, hair and fashion, and therefore depicts that the girls should use them. Evidently it is encouraging young girls to wear brightly coloured eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara and lipgloss at a very early age, and regardless if they are allowed or not the girls would attempt to because of what the representation that the magazine has created.

The conventions of teenage magazines are that there is to be a feature of love life, and elements in which encourage young girls to improve their appearance. Displayed on almost all magazine covers are cover lines used to entice the girls, but the cover lines used are being consumed by the young girls without them fully understanding the extent of what they are reading. Some magazines include cover lines like 'The Sex Factor' 'Ways to look your best' 'How to attract your crush', all these illustrate that young girls should be cautious of their image. They will make girls go to extreme to look their best and therefore has the potential to enhance the concept of growing up too fast and making the girls wear clothes that they wouldn't and shouldn't wear at their age. One of the example magazine covers which was studied, there was a particular cover line depicting 'Jeans that make your butt look great', this indicates that girls should show off their features in order to attract boys, despite the knowledge that young girls read this magazine and would be encouraged to buy the jeans and wear certain clothing in order to gain popularity and look good. It is also implying that they should have a crush or a boyfriend and suggesting they should change themselves in order to gain a friendship or relationship, however girls between 11-14 are targeted to have this element in their life however they are not understanding that there are other things in life that are more apparent. The teenage boys are also represented to only have interest in girls that have a certain look to them, therefore portray them negatively. It enhances that boys only look for the pretty girls like those in magazines. They also feature articles in the magazines whereby girls write in about a boy and its displayed to make the boy look bad. The magazines capture their audience with the content they include and purposely propose features that girls would be affected by.

All magazine despite the genre include a number of advertisements published within the magazine pages and they are very aware of the ones in which would appeal to the audience in mind. Adverts included in teen magazines are those associated with beauty, fashion and entertainment. Girls would see these images and be enticed to buy what the magazine is perusing. Although the magazines are partly to blame for allowing certain advertisements to be put into their pages, to some extent the adverts themselves are depicting the early sexualisation of the young girls who read and see the adverts. Girls at the age of 11-14 are exhilarated to buy products that aren't necessarily age appropriate for them. They don't need cosmetics and hair products but they would want to buy them because the advert is displaying them in this particular magazine and therefore will feel repelled to buy the product. Young girls are also easily influenced by their social groups, if one person has a particular product it would encourage them to go and buy the same thing because its replicated to be aware of the latest 'in' things. Advertisements often use the well known celebrities in which the audience are fond of, this is a way of selling the product easily because if girls were to see their favourite celebrity wearing a brand they are instantly more aided to buy it.

Other forms of media, which could be responsible for the ramifications they pursue, are TV programmes. The TV industry is frequently increasing and accordingly becoming an element in which is seen as influential to those who consume it regularly. Reality TV shows are gaining vast amounts of popularity, particularly from young audiences. Teenagers have demonstrated a common interest for shows like The Only Way is Essex, Geordie Shore and Made in Chelsea, all of these shows claim to convey reality and normal situations, this is what draws the attention from teenagers because its entertaining. However these shows are implying negative ramifications about the way teenagers should be, it depicts drinking, swearing, wearing inappropriate clothing and behaving in a certain manor. All of which is something that young girls should not be copying, but due to the popularity of the shows its easy for them to be encouraged. it represents girls in such a way that people have bad perceptions of them. Girls often see some of these stars as influential due to the social normality of the concept. These 'celebrities' are visible everywhere and therefore girls who haven't yet seen the shows can still become inveigled due to the look they interpret in adverts and magazines.

To conclude it is evident that certain magazines aimed at teenage girls have potentially breeched the code in which they should follow to be deemed appropriate in the industry. The use of well known celebrities of a similar age to the audience illustrated in a certain way is an inventive method of representing teenage girls. I believe that personally some magazine should remove certain cover lines in which could be interpreted in the wrong way, the young girls are unaware of the real amplitude that is being exposed, yet continue to read regardless. The girls used on the main image should also be dressed and displayed appropriately according to the audience, wearing a more natural look to show young girls that make up isn't a necessity. In relation to this magazines should feature articles more equipped to the young consumers, having elements about school, hobbies and entertainment as apposed to fashion and beauty. I would agree to an extent that magazines are the reasoning for the social ramifications that they offer to the young girls due to the featuring of particular articles, celebrities and cover lines but it could also be conspicuous that there are other forms of media which display representations which influence the audiences in a distinct way.

Teen Girl Magazines

These are examples of magazines in which are precisely designed to appeal to teenage girls. They are made to have a niche audience due to the demand to have specific genres. They aim at a condensed market in order to follow the codes and conventions that are expected in order to gain a large majority of sales within the audience it is targeted. From studying these magazines there are obvious similarities that arise due to the code that the magazine has followed according to the genre. All covers have a main image of a teenage girl, and prepensely they are all well known celebrities to the audience and resemble beauty. The name of the celebrity is also boldly presented to correlate the image and article. By displaying popular celebrities it lures the audience to want to buy it due to the admiration they have for that person. It is also noticeable that they are all smiling and showing innocence, this is illustrating the connection with the audience, proclaiming they should reflect what is being portrayed and represent the girl used on the cover. A particular colour scheme is also extensive because they are all colours that would captivate the teenage girls, there are uses of pink, blue, purple, yellow and red all of which are colours that represent the female audience. The uses of the cover lines are also conventional because they speculate that girls should be into boys, fashion and beauty. All the magazines within this genre feature articles of this matter because its ideological that girls are interested in reading about the latest fashion, how to get boys and ideas on how to diverse their appearance. A lot of uses of plugs and puffs are displayed on these covers, young girls would establish the prominent bubble and be drawn into buying it because its so easily identifiable on all magazine covers.